Front Lines
by Plywood Fiend
Summary: Set during wing commander 3 The pilots of The TCS Hermes fight to defend Confed territory in Vega sector from the Kilrathi. Chapter 37 is up.
1. Retreat

**O.K,I got a fair amount of information from tactics. soI'll be polite and thank whoever made that website.**

**Also, thanks to 'Mcgruff' for reviewing on the CIC forums.**

**Finally, I don't own Wing Commander, I don't own nearly enough of the games either. **

**Front Lines**

**By the Plywood Fiend**

**Chapter 1: Retreat**

**Salamander's Perspective**

_A strategic withdrawal. _That's what they always called them. Intentional surrender of nonessential systems, thereby causing the enemy to spread themselves too thinly, allowing for a greater chance of success in counter attacks. If it had ever worked out that way I didn't know. All I knew was that here in the Vega sector, all we seemed to do was carry out a 'strategic withdrawal', then spend a month or two trying to defend whichever system we fell back to before abandoning that to the Kilrathi as well.

If they were spreading themselves too thinly, you wouldn't know it from the force they sent to chase us out of Chang Cu. Three Bhantkara class fleet carriers with five Fralthi 2 class cruisers. The _Hermes_ task force was no match for them on its own. Hence we'd been sent out to keep their bombers away from our ships whilst they made for the jump point. This was the kind of mission I loved more then most, the kind of mission where, assuming you weren't incinerated in your cockpit, you could easily be left behind by your home ship and then incinerated in your cockpit, (if you were lucky).

Anyway, things hadn't been going all that bad to begin with. Me and my two wingman, 'Torrent' and 'Fool' had already trashed a wing of Paktahn bombers heading for the _Dominion_, and the Arrows from 'Swift Blade' squadron and Hellcats from 'Fire Wings' had been keeping the cats off of out backs. Unfortunately, for every bomber we destroyed, three more seemed to emerge from a Kilrathi hanger.

"Guys, follow me in, same as last time, pick one and keep firing till you see floating whiskers."

"Aye sir." Torrent replied, it was nice to see that the nervousness I'd heard in her before the mission had faded.

"Sure thing Major." Fool replied shortly thereafter.

A Dralthi took a few pot shots at my Thunderbolt on the way in, my front shields took a hit before I was able to swerve out of the way. I instantly brought up my rear view turret display but the Kilrathi was nowhere to be seen. I checked the radar and saw a bright red dot that looked fairly close to the stern of my fighter, being chased by a blue dot.

I didn't have time for gratitude or relief; the first of the Paktahn was already in firing range. A series of bright green, blue and yellow flashes to my right told me that Torrent had already started firing. I followed suit a second later when I had positioned my targeting crosshair over the rotating green one on my view screen.

The pilot's reflexes were far better then his predecessors that we'd blown apart earlier, he pulled his ship out of my line of fire before after only a few hits. I looked at my targeting display; his port shield was barely damaged. Shit.

"Worthless human filth," chortled a Kilrathi pilot happily over my com unit, "You cannot hope to save yourselves."

I considered replying but I abandoned the idea, I didn't have time for this.

I pulled my ship to the right, narrowly missing a string of fire from my target's rear turret. I tried to keep the beastie in my sights long enough to get a missile lock but I soon found my shields getting whacked once again. This time by a Vaktoth. Presumably the ship of the guy who'd just taunted me.

I wouldn't take any bombers out with this bastard snapping at my heals, and I couldn't sit back and hope that a passing Arrow or Hellcat would blow it away.

"Torrent, Fool, keep firing at the bombers, I'll try and get this guy off out tails."

"Aye sir."

"Got it."

The Kilrathi had flown passed my fighter and was now preparing for another run at me. I immediately punched my afterburners and swung my ship towards him.

As the cat saw me flying towards him at suitable ramming speed, his first reaction, thankfully, was to get out of my way before he found the bow of my fighter embedded in his cockpit. As he flew off to his left, I instantly pulled in behind him. His rear turret started firing at me but that didn't defend him against the far greater stream of gunfire that I threw into his rear shields. Once these had collapsed, I fired off an Imrec missile up his engines. He had time to eject one decoy, which flew straight passed the missile and into my front shields, before the missile struck his craft, causing it to spin uncontrollably, trailing a line of fire as it did so.

The pilot said a few things over the radio in Kilrathi. I don't know what he was saying but it was probably something offensive. After revelling in triumph for about one second, I pulled back towards the others and tried to find another Paktahn to shoot at.

I increased my speed to maximum. Sitting still for extended periods of time in a place like this redefines stupid. I found Torrent and Fool roughly five kilometres away from me. Out of the original group of four bombers, three remained, judging by the look of Fool's target, it looked like the number would soon be reduced to two.

Space was beginning to fill up with debris; most of it was too badly charred to determine whether it was from a Kilrathi or Confed fighter.

Whilst moving my ship around what once may have been the wing of a star fighter, I almost flew my ship into an ejected Terran pilot, I had to swerve and then some to avoid them. I couldn't help but feel a sudden stab of pity. None of our ships had been outfitted with tractor beams, there was no chance that the Hermes would send out a rescue shuttle in the middle of a battle like this, and they wouldn't be here when it ended. That pilot, whoever he or she was, would either get whacked by a passing ship, get fried by a stray shot or be scooped up by the Kilrathi. There was nothing any of us could do about that.

I pushed the thought from my mind as best as I could as the ping of the missile lock sounded. I fired off a second Imrec into a nearby, seemingly undamaged Paktahn's shields. The pilot instantly pulled up, losing its torpedo lock on the _Toronto_.

The missile swerved into a decoy that the Kilrathi bomber had deployed and detonated a few moments later. I let it go. I had to focus on the fighters that were still heading for our capital ships.

I found a target, and fired. The Paktahn didn't try and flee right away, the pilot presumably was mere seconds away from a missile lock. I grinned, I was firing at an idiot. A rookie without a doubt. The sort who hasn't figured out from a dying wingman's last snarling hiss that they aren't immune to death.

His shields failed after a moment, soon afterwards, my tactical display revealed moderate damage to his engines after a few gunshots impacted on his hull.

He started to move then, not that it did him much good. His engines had taken a fair few hits and he couldn't move much faster then a porcupine mine. I swung around behind him and fired again. He ejected about five seconds earlier then he probably could have got away with. I wasn't so careful to avoid his ejection seat as I was with the other pilot. There was a slight flash of blue as the Cat was fried on my shields, then nothing. Oh well, accidents happen.

"The _Rome_ is taking hits guys," Said Lieutenant Jake Coben, the _Hermes'_ com officer, "Cover her."

Above me, I could just make out shapes that appeared to be Longbow bombers. It was nice to see they'd finally got some of those in the air, maybe now we could even up the odds a bit. Unfortunately, their presence meant that a lot of the fighters guarding our rears were about to be diverted to cover the bombers.

I heard a scream then, a human scream which came from a face that had appeared on my, and most probably everyone else's com screen. The pilot was waving his arms frantically, trying to fend off the flames that were reaching up from his consoles to lash at him.

There was the briefest sound of an explosion, and then the screen went dead.

The pilot had probably opened a channel to all ships to request assistance. It was easier to ask everyone then see who was closest, especially if your wingman had been fried. I don't know if this was the case. Anyway, instead, our entire compliment of airborne pilots was treated to the sight of his fiery death and the sound of his shriek of an epitaph. Not to sound unfeeling, I mean I did feel bad for the guy, I still do, and I'm not blaming him for what happened, but in the heat of combat we don't need stuff like that.

"All fighters," Coben again, "We are approaching the jump point, you have five minutes to get yourselves back here before we jump out. Don't dawdle people, if we have to leave you behind, we will.

I remember thinking that it was kind of pointless sending the bombers out seeing as they didn't have time to shoot at anything, That was before I heard the cry of,

"I die for my…"

This transmission was cut off abruptly as space lit up by the exploding fusion reactor of one of the Bhantkara carriers. After another moment of silence, a number of Kilrathi pilots started hissing and growling their outrage at us over the radio. They also seemed to be shooting at us with renewed zeal.

My rear shields took hits from two Darkets that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. My onboard computer instantly took control of the rear turret and let off a few rounds into the closest fighter, which then proceeded to fire a heat seeker at me.

My 'Lock' light sprang to life with the fast, nervous beeping that usually added to the nervousness of the guy trying to evade the missile. I dropped off a decoy and hit my afterburners, swinging my ship around so that it was pointed at the _Hermes. _It made no difference.

The missile crashed into the rear of my Thunderbolt, ripping my rear shields away with contemptuous ease. There was a sharp jolt and I was flung forward towards my view screen. My ship had veered off course slightly, I tried to correct that after I'd pried myself off the window, but the two Darkets quickly appeared from the shadows once again and started firing at my now singed fighter. Flying in a straight line no longer seemed like a good idea.

"Hurry up people, you have three minutes left."

My rear turret was gone, no help there, I hit the afterburners and hoped that the damage I'd taken from the missile hit hadn't wouldn't slow me down too much.

"Jak-ta-gah! Yes, run! Worthless ape dung. You will die before you…"

The Kilrathi pilot's taunt was cut off as his fighter blew up. Its always a good idea to keep an eye on your radar when firing at a target, its easy to get distracted when you're a hit or two away from a kill and not notice the beastie sneaking up behind you.

"Thanks Razor." I uttered, trying to hide my relief behind forced nonchalance.

"Don't mention it. I knew you'd need me to help you sooner or later." She cut the channel before I could respond with a witty comment of my own. Truth be told I didn't really have one, but that's not important.

The second Darket had veered off, presumably to try and avenge his wingman. I was tempted to try and even the score by shooting the beast off of her tail, but decided against it when I noticed the flak fire coming from the _Hermes_ and her support ships. She didn't need my help. Truth be told she probably didn't need it anyway.

Pilots were flying into the Hermes' docking bay in groups of twos and threes. I guessed that no one was making landing requests considering the circumstances; they were just waiting to be told to get in and getting in, quickly.

I spent about twenty seconds hovering near the Hermes; it felt more like twenty minutes. I kept expecting to see the ship disappear into the jump point, leaving the rest of us alone with the cats.

I spent this time launching my remaining missiles at whatever targets hadn't already been taken out by Flak fire or had already gotten out of firing range. I was able to take out one limping Dralthi and cause one Vaktoth pilot to eject before Coben's face finally appeared on my com screen.

"Major McLean, get your wing onboard now!"

"Alright guys, you heard the man, land and land quickly."

"Yes sir." They said in succession.

I hurled my ship around the bridge and hastily lined myself up with the docking bay. It felt a bit like an anxiety dream, the kind where you're running towards something vitally important and your legs feel like two cinder blocks.

I moved forward far more quickly then landing procedures recommend, as a result I was almost sticking out the other end of the _Hermes_ when my ship stopped moving. I guess that was a good thing, it gave the others more room to move.

The crew on deck virtually ripped me out of the Thunderbolt. I kept hearing cries of 'Come on, move your ass son', and 'Hurry it up fuckwit, we don't have long.'

I moved as quickly as I could. I was almost tempted to leap to the deck, but hauling away an idiot with two broken legs wasn't going to help anyone get in any quicker.

"I was directed towards one of the exits, where I noticed pilots hurriedly getting out of the way of landing fighters, that seemed like sense to me.

I felt a welcome relief when I saw two Thunderbolts, in other words Fool and Torrent, emerging through the force field of the _Hermes_. This was soon replaced by concern for Razor's wellbeing, along with Scar's and Adish's.

_Get out you fool! _My head started screaming at me, or it might have been a technician, _Get out know!_

I dashed for the far wall to make sure I wouldn't get caught under someone's landing gear on my way out, then I rushed for the exit.

About halfway there, there was a sharp jolt that sent everyone on the flight deck, hell probably everyone on the ship flying to the floor. I found myself sliding towards the door before I was able to stop myself. This jolt was accompanied by an almighty bang that nearly blew my eardrums out. It took me a minute to realise what had happened.

The _Hermes _had taken a torpedo hit.

It didn't take too many torpedo hits to down even the strongest of warships, just that one would undoubtedly have caused critical damage to the Hermes. My head shot up again as a new noise emerged suddenly out of nowhere. As I noticed three Arrows touching down on the deck plating under the now flickering lights, I noticed a trail of debris being left in the _Hermes'_ wake.

_If they'd taken out the jump engine…_

I pushed the image aside and made my way to the door once again. Half expecting to be flung through by another torpedo hit.

Eventually, I made it through and hastily made my way down the corridor to the stairs leading to Flight control. A good place to be at this time, out of the way and with a view of the flight deck.

"Attention," Said an echoing, somewhat fuzzy voice from the ship's intercom, "Jump point in 30 seconds, repeat, jump point in 30 seconds."

There'd be people left behind, no doubt about it. They would be pulling as many ships as they could onboard now, except for the bombers, they had jump engines of their own, hell they'd probably gone through already.

"Jump point in 20 seconds, repeat, jump point in twenty seconds."

"Come on Razor," I whispered, "Scar, Adish. Get onboard."

I had no idea if they were onboard or not, that's why I was heading for flight control, I was hoping to catch a glimpse of their faces from the window overlooking the flight deck.

"Jump point in ten seconds."

No time left, I crouched slightly and grabbed onto the banister. Jump points could be bumpy things, especially if your ship was damaged.

"Five, four, three, two, one"

"I'm sorry."

"Initiating Jump sequence, now."

The ship shuddered, there was a bright light from the doorway up the stairs, light from the wormhole coming through the flight deck and the windows in Flight Control overlooking it. I was still wearing my flight helmet, there was a light filter in the visor that protected my eyes against such lights, everyone working on the flight deck was required to wear one in times like these, we couldn't afford to lose people to blindness in times of war.

Eventually, the shuddering shopped. The light faded and there was a deathly calm for a few moments. The calm after the storm. The fire fight that we'd escaped from less then a minute ago felt like it had happened a week ago.

Now we were in the Brimstone system. I'd fought here once, as a 2nd lieutenant, less then a month out of the academy, flying off of the TCS _Redoubtable_ and helping to wrest the system from the claws of the enemy. I can still remember the pride and hope I felt as I watched the News footage of our demolitions team taking down the base on Brimstone 2. I can never forgive myself for feeling hope.

Oh, in case you were wondering, I was apologising to the pilot I'd flown passed, and anyone else who had been left behind in Chang-Cu. I know there was nothing I could do to save those that had bailed out, nor could I have gotten one more person onboard. Still, I couldn't help but feel guilty.

I've had to apologise too often.

I released the banister from my grasp and made my way back down to the flight deck. There was no sign of Fool or Torrent, they must have been in Flight Control or somewhere.

As I stepped onto the flight deck, I saw a lot of frustrated faces, everyone feeling bitter over our failure in Chang Cu, everyone feeling irrationally responsible for all the people who died or were left behind. I also saw a few people, like myself, searching for familiar faces, praying silently to God to let there friends be alright.

I noticed Scar first, or should I say he noticed me. As I was wandering aimlessly, trying to stay out of everyone's way and make my way to the large cluster of pilots who seemed to be gathered next to a Thunderbolt, I felt a grip on my shoulder. I turned around and there he was, just staring at me, looking as deadpan as he always seemed to.

"Greetings tovarish, " He said, his thick Russian accent barely penetrating the ringing in my ears. "I'm glad to see you made it."

"Likewise," I said, clapping him on the shoulder as I did so, "Have you seen Razor? Or Adish?"

He shook his head slowly. I sighed and nodded, more to myself then him.

"Let's head for that lot, maybe they're in there somewhere."

"Very well sir."

We walked toward the line, hastily trying to get close enough to distinguish faces. In my line of vision, I soon found myself looking at the faces of a lot of relieved looking pilots, chatting with friends who's lives they had been afraid for, other people were still searching, their eyes becoming ever more worried. One young looking guy was crying.

Scar grabbed my shoulder again, I turned round and saw him pointing at two figures a few meters away from us, talking to each other next to an Arrow.

Relief flooded through me, it was Razor and Adish. For a moment, I just stood there, enjoying the feeling. Then I noticed Adish pointing in our direction, the four of us began moving towards each other.

"Thank God," Razor said, when we finally got close enough to hear each other. She still looked worried, "Where's Fool and Torrent?"

"They're fine," I said, "They came in around the same time as me, I think they went through into Flight control, they're probably looking for us from one of the windows."

Adish sighed heavily, the relief was now flooding through him. I enjoyed the feeling while it lasted. After a few moments the bitterness and guilt fought their way back to the surface.

"Let's get out of here." Adish said, "We're just getting in the way, and I don't know about the rest of you but I could use a drink."

"I think we all could," Scar added.

We moved towards the exit. The Hermes and her escort ships now were now running at best possible speed to the Confederation position at Brimstone two. We needed to get away from the jump point quickly, in case the Kilrathi decided to follow us through. We doubted that they would, it made more sense to fall back, gather a suitably strong fleet and just waltz in and pound us later.

After we met up with Fool and Torrent, we headed to the rec-room and like many other pilots, we drank. We drank until our defeat was a distant memory, hidden behind the vale of a drunken stupor.

**To be continued.**


	2. Aftermath

**Thansk to Macross-Green for reviewing. There will be characters from the game appearing in later chapters, and also in this one although its not really a major character. Oh well, thanks for reviewing and glad you've enjoyed thus far.**

**Chapter 2: Aftermath**

**Razor's Perspective**

"TCN now has independent confirmation that Confederation forced retreated from the Chang Cu system, in the Vega sector at approximately 0600 hours yesterday. This is the fourth system in Vega to be retaken by the Kilrathi in the last six months. The grim reality seems to be, that Vega sector, site of many major Confederation victories, is now being stolen away by the Kilrathi, a piece at a time. This is Barbara Miles, signing off for TNC."

I stared at the screen and briefly felt a familiar anger. Barbara Miles and every other TCN reporter or 'independent source' always seemed to delight in tales of Confederation defeats. This was always hidden behind an air of nonchalance but you could almost feel the sickening satisfaction as she dealt a blow to the moral of the arch enemy of the media.

The Confederation military always tried to clamp down on things that could cause public unrest and hysteria. Things were tense enough at the best of times in the homelands, the last thing we needed was panic, rioting and chaos. Yet these TCN bastards insisted on trying to create panic, rioting and chaos. Why? Because of ratings.

When you spend your life fighting for the survival of your species, you develop a contempt for the trivial things you might have worried about before. From where I was sitting, ratings, popularity and career advancement seemed more trivial then a missing thread from a flight suit. Why these people couldn't see past their own virtually meaningless jobs and think about what was best for the species was beyond me.

I pushed the image from my head and turned my attention back towards my drink. Part of me wanted to wander over to the kill board, but the rest of me knew that doing so would only show far too many names with the words 'deceased' or 'MIA' written next to them. I didn't want to see that, none of us wanted to.

We'd left twenty three people behind in Chang Cu for the Cats to do with as they pleased. Another twelve pilots had been blown to pieces by enemy fire. The fact that almost three times as many Kilrathi star fighters, and one cruiser had gone to the great litter box in the sky was little consolation.

We'd been told to expect replacement personnel some time this week. That wasn't just fighter pilots either, that torpedo hit on the Hermes had taken 53 crewmembers with it, the lucky ones were killed instantly, the less lucky were sucked through the resulting hull breach and left to die slowly in the vacuum of space.

I tried, once again, to banish these thoughts from my head. My head seemed determined to torment me with images of exploding bodies and pilots, people I knew being sliced to pieces by Kilrathi claws.

_Death is a part of war. Wherever you serve out there, death will haunt you and in all likelihood claim you. If you cannot accept that then you will go insane._

Those were the words of Jake Timmons. A man who couldn't live with death all around him when he was a second lieutenant onboard the TCS _Maine_ and promptly went insane. This wasn't the kind of screaming, demented insanity that you see so often in Holo-movies. Maybe insane isn't even the right word. The guy was haunted by nightmares and would either faint or break down on the deck whenever he approached a fighter. In the end they carted him home.

Unwilling to be put out to pasture so early, he became a guest speaker at the academy, (after some psychiatric treatment of course), where he warned young recruits about what to expect on the front so that they were less likely to lose their heads after the first brush with interstellar mortality.

Anyway. My train of thought was, thankfully, brought to an abrupt halt by the appearance of Salamander. He was wearing the same glum facial expression that he'd been wearing for the last five odd months. For him the downswing in the war effort was always lurking above him, waiting to cast a shadow over the slightest sliver of happiness. That was my theory anyway.

I kicked a seat out from under the table as he approached. He gave a weary half smile and sat down. His face looked like he'd spent the last two nights living in the cockpit of an Arrow. He was also making a conscious effort not to move his head.

By the looks of him, he hadn't recovered from his hangover yet. Most pilots I noticed had chosen to live with the searing pain in their head rather then drink the God forsaken anti-hangover goop, which despite curing hangovers, tasted like shit mixed with reactor fuel. Drinking it was almost as bad as the hangover itself and was known to cause some pilots to spend two or three hours vomiting.

Having said that, three guesses what I'd done when I woke up with a hangover.

Anyway, the conversation started with the typical questions and answers that people say again and again so that it seems as if they have something to say. Each of us was careful to avoid unpleasant subjects such as retreating and missing persons.

"So when are you next heading out?" He asked a few minutes in, after downing his second glass of water and signalling to the bartender for a third.

"14 hundred." I replied, "Most of the Fire Wings are getting stuck with patrol duty. Flying around the system looking for Kilrathi who are still two or three days away at least. Oh be still my beating heart."

"Sounds like a suitable task for Fire Wing Pilots, let's just hope that none of you mistake an asteroid for the _Hermes_ and meet a fiery end while trying to land.

I couldn't let that pass. My right leg shot out and Salamander grunted in pain as it collided with his knee.

Such was the way onboard the _Hermes_, not long after the ship launched, friendly competition between 'Fire Wings' squadron, (the ships compliment of Hellcat pilots), and 'Death's Shadow' squadron, (the ship's Thunderbolt flyers) broke out. Each squadron was constantly trying to outperform the other, in kills, medals, mission ribbons, witty comments and so on.

"What about you?" I asked after a few seconds, "Do you know when you're next heading out?"

"No idea. I haven't heard anything. So all there is for me to do is sit here and wait." He made a noise that was a cross between a sigh and a laugh, "There are times when I actually prefer getting shot at then sitting in this fucking tub. I mean at least…"

He cut himself off, his last word quickly changed to a hiss of air pushed through clenched teeth. I knew how he felt. We were all feeling it, and we had all felt it before. Out there in the cockpit, shame, guilt, despair and all that shit, for the most part, took a back seat. It was replaced by nervousness brought about by the potential for a fire fight, or the heat of battle itself.

There have been some notable exceptions. During the _Hermes _carrier group's stay in the Gimlie system, two Arrows from 'Swift Blade' squadron had rammed themselves straight into two Paktahns. It was defiantly suicide, the flight recorder data showed that beyond any doubt.

I often wondered if the Kilrathi ever felt despair. I doubted it.

There was a moment of silence in which Salamander seemed to be resisting the urge to hurl his glass across the room. In the end, he let out a long sigh and pushed himself to his feet.

"I have to take a shower; I'll see you when I see you."

"O.K, see you."

He opened his mouth to say something more, then he closed it again. With his head hanging down he made his way to the lift.

**THREE HOURS LATER**

It was quiet in the briefing room as we waited for Colonel Cade Trent to arrive. Normally in the minutes leading up to a mission briefing, you could hear the chatter of pilots talking about kills and assorted war stories. Today, a deathly silence hung over the room. There was nothing to say.

Empty seats were littered around the room. The Fire Wings had lost four pilots. Lieutenant Zachary 'Gladiator' Hill, Captain Elena 'Spike' Williams, Lieutenant Howard 'Lechery' Fulsome, and Lieutenant Anisa 'Fury' Monteagle. I didn't really know any of them. They were just names, voices and faces that I had grown used to seeing or hearing.

I pushed the thoughts aside as best as I could as I noticed Colonel Trent emerge through a far door and walk up to his podium.

"Alright people, listen up. I know you're all feeling bad about Chang Cu and everyone we lost there, but we can't dwell on that now. The cats will be coming for us, soon, and when they get here we can't afford to be crying into our beers."

He paused and pressed a number of buttons on the terminal in front of him. The map screen then flickered to life and displayed a seemingly empty green grid.

"Over the next few days we'll be sending out numerous patrols to several jump points which the Kilrathi might arrive through, as well as several potential staging areas that they might use."

Specific wings and patrol routes were then assigned. Mine came somewhere near the end.

"Razor, you'll lead Rho wing. Mace will be your wingman. Computer, display Rho." Trent paused again as he waited for the computer to display our patrol route. Three Nav points, no asteroids or mine fields to contend with, seemed pretty simple.

"I'd like you to fly to these three Nav points. When you get to Nav 3, you are to await the arrival of the transport 'Susan Danvers'. She's the first of the relief ships that'll be heading our ay in the next few days. Make sure she gets here in one piece. Any questions?"

"No sir." I replied,

"None sir." Mace replied a few seconds later.

"Very well then, next up is…"

I stopped listening after that. I always loathed escort missions, especially ones involving transports. Crawling across space at a speed that makes a tranquilised snail seem fast by comparison, and being in the company of something that is more or less a large, floating bull's-eye is not exactly fun.

I searched my head, looking for a time when I had actually considered a mission fun. There had only been one, and that had been short lived. As a nauseatingly overconfident 2nd Lieutenant onboard the TCS _Titan_, I had been part of a four ship raid on an enemy _Lumbari_ convoy moving through the Nifelheim system. Things were going well at first, I had just earned my 'Ace' ribbon for my fifth confirmed kill, three of the five Sarthas had been obliterated, the first transport was seconds away from exploding, and then, as I pulled to the left to get another Sartha in my sights, I saw my intended target slam into my wingman's Rapier.

I froze instantly, shock and disbelief coursing into my veins. That was my first brush with death. Moronic though this would sound, I always felt somewhat immune to it. I carried the deluded impression that if I did my job right, I wouldn't have to worry about an untimely demise. Bad luck, superior enemy numbers, a kamikaze cat and dozens of other unnerving possibilities never entered my head.

It was in that instant, for me, that the Kilrathi stopped being fuzzy, loud mouthed pests, and started becoming the fearful, dangerous enemy that everyone with an ounce of sense saw them as, it was also then that I let go of my deluded ideas about how life and death in interstellar combat worked. It was only a few hits on my rear shield and a few angry shouts of 'Wake up' over the radio that snapped me out of my trance.

We completed the mission, the enemy was obliterated, and the destruction of the _Lumbari _troop transports was of great help to our marines on Nifelheim and allowed us to retake the system. But I could never again think of my job as fun.

I was brought back to the present when I heard Trent ask,

"Any questions?"

"Yes sir," Said another pilot, I didn't know her. "How long do you expect it will be before the Kilrathi arrive in system?"

"We don't know Lieutenant, it could be a matter of days, it could be this evening, so let's not waste any time. "Any other questions?" Silence was his answer, "Alright, squadron dismissed."

We stood up and moved towards the equipment lockers where our flight suits and helmets waited. Some people muttered words of encouragement to others, most remained silent. I even saw a grin on one face. What he was grinning at I'm still not sure.

**TWO HOURS LATER**

"Rho wing, this is Alpha wing out of the TCS _Coral Sea_, we are handing the transport over to you."

"Acknowledged Alpha wing," I responded, "Anything interesting happen on your flight?"

"Nah" The pilot's voice was genuinely disappointed, "Too damn quiet in this system."

"I don't expect it will stay that way for long."

"That's good. I have a score to settle with these hairy bastards."

I was about to say 'You and everyone else', but I decided against it. As much as staying here and talking to this guy seemed far more appealing then following this space born slug back to the _Hermes_, we didn't have time to waste.

"We'd better get going. Thanks Alpha wing, good hunting."

"To you as well."

With that the two Hellcats turned and headed back the way they came.

"Transport 'Susan Danvers' this is Major Samantha Baez, we'll escort you to the _Hermes_.

"Copy that, we are starting our approach."

After Mace and me had entered formation with the transport, I flicked my autopilot switch and sat back in my chair, keeping one eye on the radar.

The first two Nav points had been clear of Kilrathi. As we approached the second one, the jump hole we'd used to retreat from Chang Cu, I'd half expected to see a H'varkan or two come through. I'd been more then a little relieved when we were safely away from it.

As quiet as it was there, and as foolish as I had felt after we were away from it. It wouldn't be long before the Kilrathi came through it. Then how long would it be before were pulling out of this system as well? At the rate things were going, the Confederation forces, what was left of them were getting pushed further and further into a corner. How long would it be before the _Hermes_, assuming it survived, was flying through a jump hole to Earth, hovering in orbit, making one last desperate stand with the other surviving Confed ships against an unbeatable Kilrathi force that would take out the Earth and finish this war?

I rebuked myself for the thought, thinking like that wouldn't help anyone.

**To be continued.**


	3. Faith

**O.K, I know I'm way behind schedule here and for that I apologise. I shall pin the blame on coursework and essays for college, as well as a short lived lack of inspiration but that's now passed.**

**Thanks alsoto the new reviewer.**

**Chapter 3: Faith**

**Torrent's perspective**

_Greetings my friend,_

_I am pleased to hear that you survived with the majority of your battle group and live still to fight our enemy. I also regret to hear of your failure in Chang Cu. I am certain that you all fought valiantly to keep the system, but alas it was not enough._

_I hope that fate favours you in Brimstone. I feel I must warn you however, that system has been a symbol of humiliation for the Empire since it was lost to the Confederation earlier in the war. Many eights of warriors committed Zu'kara as a punishment inflicted upon themselves for their failure. Many more eights of Kilrathi swore to slay every terran audacious enough to be within an imperial system of such strategic importance. Be careful Ryuku, the Empire will stop at nothing to get this system back, the enemies you will face with be filled with furious anger and a burning hatred stronger then what you typically see._

_Nevertheless, I have confidence in you and your comrades onboard the Hermes. You will prevail._

_I am pleased to report that here in the Morpheus system things have gone well. Despite moderate losses of men and equipment, we have been able to wrest the system from the Empire and capture one of their supply depots intact. We were also able to terminate several enemy warships, and cause several more to flee from this system. This was truly a glorious battle._

_I do not know where I will be assigned next. I can only hope it is to a system that will be more of a challenge. As you continually request I will try to 'keep myself in one piece'._

_Whatever awaits you, fly always with bravery and skill._

_Z'ratmak nar Ghorah Khar_

I always like getting letters from Z'ratmak; he takes such joy in even the most meaningless of victories. I once saw him bare all his teeth, (the Kilrathi grin of triumph apparently), at his food after he'd finally mastered the art of using a knife and fork. Although after he had accomplished this he decided that eating with his paws was easier.

Z'ratmak nar Ghorah Khar is one of a very small number of Kilrathi serving within the confederation military. He was, and still is to the best of my knowledge, the commander of a terran confederation marine unit; the 'Spine snappers'.

Until about a year before we arrived in Chang-Cu, he'd been serving onboard the Hermes. A lot of the crew didn't take too kindly to having a Kilrathi onboard. In some ways I can't really blame them, I felt the same way at first, it wasn't until I took a chance and got to know Z'ratmak that I'd been able to see passed my prejudices and eventually accept him as a friend.

Actually, that's a lie.

It wasn't until I saw a technician, who had made one too many offensive comments to Z'ratmak, be hurled clear across the Rec-room by him that I began to question my prejudices. After all, that technician had always been an insufferable loudmouthed fool. What I saw in our new Kilrathi marine after this incident was not a savage beast in a Confed uniform, but a man who was an impeccable judge of character.

Well, that's also something of an exaggeration, and there was more to our becoming friends then that. That is, more or less how it started however.

So we'd taken Morpheus? Well that was good news; it was nice to know that we were on the offensive in some corners of the universe.

Of course as with every piece of good news, there was always a rumour to spoil it. In this case it was that Confed was striking strategically worthless systems so as to give the impression of 'winning the war' to the civilian population, or in the hopes of diverting Kilrathi attention from the more strategically important systems that they were attacking. If either was the case then it wasn't working. The Kilrathi were still hitting us where it hurt with full force, and the public was as often as not always listening to reports of a Kilrathi raid on a populated planet taking the lives of thousands of innocent civilians. This, as you can imagine, does not do much for morale back home.

I closed the message, shut down the laptop and returned it to its normal position on the floor underneath my bunk.

For a few moments I just sat motionless, letting each increasingly monotonous second pass. There was nothing else to do, the simulator was in use, there wasn't much happening in the Rec room, I wasn't especially tired and until further notice I was off duty, so there was nothing for me to do but sit here and listen to another person's rhythmic snoring.

I pushed myself to my feet and started walking towards the door. Early evening was beginning to set in, maybe I could get dinner before the crowds assembled.

**TWENTY MINUTES LATER**

"I'm serious," Adish said loudly, causing a few heads to turn our way, "I pointed out to him that his and Razor's feelings for each other were as blindingly obvious as the fact that Kilrathi have fur, and his face went redder then a radish. He then made some bullshit excuse to leave and virtually ran to the lift."

I laughed at the image, as did Fool. Salamander and Razor had spent the better part of a year vehemently denying and hiding from their feelings for each other. Partly because they didn't want to get hurt if and when one of them met an untimely end, (which is understandable enough), and partly because they were both to proud to reduce themselves, (as they would have seen it), to the soppy, nauseating couples that occasionally appeared onboard ship, always holding hands and giggling inanely.

To the detached third party however, their reasons for denying what they felt made no sense. In all probability, we would all be slain during the course of our career. Since the war started, the percentage of pilots that made it to retiring age had hovered steadily around 17, and most of those consisted of people stationed in such backwater systems that the biggest threat to pilots was boredom, They at least had the chance to experience some happiness in their lives; or as Fool once put it, _They at least had the chance to get laid a few times before they got whacked._

Silence hung between the three of us for a few moments as we ingested a few more spoonfuls of the imitation beef stew that we had been served. What it was made of no one knew, nor did they want to know for that matter. In terms of our daily nutrients, most of which are formed from things not too dissimilar to reactor fluid, ignorance really is bliss.

Nevertheless it still tasted nice.

"Speaking of," said Fool suddenly, "When is Razor due back?"

"Another three hours I think," Adish said after hastily swallowing another mouthful, "You know what it's like with transports, it'll be a miracle if she gets back before the cats get here."

"She will," Fool added with an air of detached callousness that his face didn't mirror too well, "The cats shouldn't be showing themselves for a few days yet, that fleet carrier of theirs blowing up will slow them down for sure."

"You're welcome." Adish said with a slight bow. I couldn't help but grin, a dead fleet carrier was a major morale boost for Adjudicator squadron, (our Longbow pilots), no matter the circumstances.

As my mind replayed the last twenty seconds, I realised that people had already began to force themselves to forget about the dead and missing in action, even before the funeral. It took me a few more seconds to realise that I'd been doing the same thing. It was becoming second nature. If you didn't push death, fear and despair away, they would consume you. What use would you be to the confederation then?

"Did you get the kill shot?" I asked, hoping to break the new silence and my own train of thought.

"God knows, tactical didn't get a good look and a lot of our flight recorders took hits on the way out, that means one out of a possible seventeen pilots, myself included, did the deed."

"That's a tachyon up the ass." Fool added.

"Isn't it?"

"Yeah, I mean how often does…"

"Attention," Boomed an unknown voice over the ships intercom, "All available Swift Blade and Death's Shadow pilots are to report to the briefing room immediately, repeat, all available Swift Blade and Death's Shadow pilots are to report to the briefing room immediately. That is all."

"Damn," Fool muttered, clasping his bowl in both hands, "For once I thought I'd get to eat without having that thing go off." With that he raised the bowl to his lips and swallowed the contents with a series of graceless slurps.

I considered doing the same but I wasn't really that hungry. Instead I simply stood up and left it.

"See you when we see you." I said to Adish, then me and Fool made our way to the lift.

In the briefing room I found myself sitting behind an annoyingly tall man who blocked my view of the map screen. There was a lot of background chatter. It was not often that squadrons were called to the briefing room in pairs, normally they were briefed individually. When this wasn't the case it often meant that there wasn't time, and that always meant that Kilrathi were close by.

As the last of the pilots filed in through the door, Salamander sat himself down in the seat to the right of Fool and me. He gave a weary half smile by way of greeting.

He looked worried, and still slightly hung over. Not surprising really, whenever one of us was out he felt nervous, when it was Razor who was out flying, he usually looked like he was resisting the urge to climb into his thunderbolt and fly out after her.

"Alright people," Colonel Trent was almost shouting, "Quiet down, we have to move quickly."

Silence fell over the room and all eye turned expectantly towards Trent,

"One of our tracking stations has reported that Kilrathi have already come through the jump point,"

A shocked, weary murmur emerged from the silence. Although we knew there could be no other explanation for our being summoned here, it still seemed impossible, the Kilrathi could never have come through this quickly, they needed to re-supply, repair their damaged ships and replace the Fleet carrier that we blew up.

"So far," Trent's voice cut through our whispers like a knife, "we have been able to identify three Kamrani class corvettes, each of which appears to have at least four Vaktoth escort fighters. I doubt that I have to explain to any of you what this small force would be tasked with."

He didn't, these ships were too small to be anything but scouts. They had most likely been sent through the jump point from Chang Cu to scan the area, collect as much information as they could on our fleet strength, bases etc. and transmit this information back through the jump point.

The Kilrathi knew that we would detect them the second they arrived in system, and they also knew that we could easily deal with such a force, even if the _Hermes_ battle group was the only one in system, (which is wasn't).

These ships were not meant to survive, they had been sent here to die. The crew and pilots no doubt had been promised eternal honour in whichever heaven, (if any) the Kilrathi believed in.

This also served as a message to us. It told us that the Kilrathi could afford to lose a few ships, and that their loss wouldn't cause any damage whatsoever to the ships waiting on the other side of the jump hole. It also served as a reminder that it wouldn't be long before their main fleet arrived.

Colonel Trent's words soon regained my attention.

"We believe that if we strike quickly enough we can take out these hairy bastards before they discover anything overly important. We'll be sending out three strike groups, consisting of two ships from Death's shadow squadron and four from Swift Blade squadron. (Arrow pilots).

At this point he began to read out names, all of us listened closely for ours, some silently praying that there's wouldn't be called out. Mine came up with the second wing.

"Beta wing will consist of Salamander, Torrent, Veneration, Dauntless, False Prince and Scar. Computer, display Beta."

The map screen quickly zoomed in on a seemingly nondescript nav point.

"Their current course and speed indicates that they'll be here at the same time you are if all goes well. Same as Alpha wing's assignment. This is a simple lightening strike mission, Thunderbolts take out the corvette, Arrows take care of the escorts. Any questions?"

Silence was his answer.

"Alright then, Gamma wing shall consist of…"

**TWO HOURS LATER**

I always preferred travelling in groups, due simply to the old saying 'Safety in numbers'. Travelling in twos never seemed overly wise, especially considering the fact that the Kilrathi had a habit of having four or more fighters in a single wing.

No one was saying anything, Salamander had ordered radio silence. If the beasties intercepted com traffic then our job could quickly become harder.

On the nav map I noticed that we were getting close, it wouldn't be long before the corvette would be appearing on our radars.

I hated enemy corvettes, they were a step and a half above their predecessors that older pilots used to delight in blasting to pieces. The beasts we faced now, along with their infamous rear turrets, had taken the lives of more then one careless pilot.

Your best hope was to try and take out that turret with a well aimed missile, if it went down you could hide behind the ship and blast it to pieces, I'd taken out two myself using that tactic.

A simpler option was just to hurl a torpedo at it, which was what we planned to do.

"Wait a minute," Said one of the arrow pilots, False Prince I think, (don't ask me how he got that call sign), "I'm getting something. After a few seconds pause he spoke up again 'It's the Corvette sir."

"Alright," Salamander said over the com, "Arrows, you know what to do, don't pay chicken with the Vaktoths, fly around them and keep hammering away at them. If they get you in their sights they'll rip you to pieces before you can say 'eeek'. Just fly right and you'll earn four kills for your squadron.

"Yes sir," came the reply.

"Torrent, lets move in, we'll both launch a torpedo, just to be sure."

"Yes sir."

"Alright people, lets get 'em."

**To be continued.**


	4. Shoot the messenger

**I'm sorry its taken me a long time to update, truth be told I have been writing this for the CIC forums but forgot to update it here, despite my trying to remind myself continuously when there were no computers present. By way of apology I shall update these next 3 chapters simultaneously and try not to forget in future. Thanks to all of you for reading and reviewing.**

**Chapter 4: Shoot the messenger **

Scar's perspective

With the sole exception of the Sorthak, I find that there is nothing worse to be fighting in an Arrow then a Vaktoth. The pesky rear turret is always standing between you and successful hits on the aft shield, and if you're really unlucky they might just come to a complete stop as your chasing them, and if you don't crash into their rears, (a collision which they are more likely to survive), you'll fly gracefully passed them and into their gun sights.

Having said this, we weren't doing too badly. Each of us were focusing on a single enemy fighter, as our targets closed in for attack runs on the two thunderbolts, we swooped in and unleashed a stream of gunfire into their rear shields, occasionally accompanied by a missile. The Vaktoths were thus forced to abandon their runs and pull away before anything nasty happened to their hulls.

Unfortunately their damn rear turrets kept us from staying on their tails for too long, we too had to pull away to a suitable distance for another attack run. This gave their shields time to recharge, but we were slowly wearing them down, they wouldn't be able to endure this for ever.

Of course we wouldn't be able to endure for that many seconds if on of them got a decent shot at us.

As if in answer to my thought, my rear shields started vanishing rapidly under the weight of Kilrathi gunfire, almost instinctively, I pulled to the left, abandoning my target for now so that I could evade the bastard behind me.

My com screen suddenly sprung to life, on it I saw the helmeted face of a Kilrathi pilot, presumably the one that had been shooting at me. He was uttering a series of strange sounds which my brain required several seconds to register as laughter.  
"Pitiful creature, the pilot said afterwards, "My Lord's concubine would be more of a challenge then you."

I wasn't sure how to respond to that, so I didn't. Taunts were Fool's area of expertise, not mine. He was the undisputed master of the witty insult, at least onboard the Hermes.

One eye on the radar told me that the Vaktoth, as well as an arrow that was shooting at him, was still behind me. It was then that inspiration set in.

I brought my ship to a dead stop and offered a very short prayer to whoever was listening that the Cat was close enough to my ship to make this work. I didn't have time to do the maths for myself.

I breathed a silent sigh of relief as I saw the massive fighter fly overhead. Blue and white light flickered around the ship, laser and ion cannon impacts on its rear shields, I released a volley of my own and watched with one eye as the image in my target information display lost its rear shields.

The fighter's rear turret fire became sporadic as the onboard computer, or gunner; I'm not sure which, tried to distribute fire between me and the second arrow.

I parted with two heat seeker missiles; that should be enough.

I swerved to the right before any more Kilrathi noticed me and searched for another target whilst at the same time tracking my missiles on the radar. Soon the two yellow dots vanished from the screen and I was rewarded with the sound of,  
"This cannot be, this Utak has…" The pilot's words were drowned out by a pained snarl.  
"Damn kill stealer." Said a human, the second arrow's pilot with half hearted irritation.  
"Sorry." I replied.

I pulled my ship upwards and soon found myself flying at full speed towards the nose of a second Vaktoth.  
"Fool." The Kilrathi pilot said matter-of-factly before opening fire. I didn't have enough time to pull away.

My forward shields disappeared in an instant. In the next instant my tactical display exploded, showering my leg with superheated shrapnel.

With one hand I brushed the shards away onto the floor before they could burn holes into my flight suit and flesh. With the other hand I swerved to the right.  
"I need help here." Shouted a terrified looking pilot, I didn't know her.  
"On it." I said instantly, despite the fact that my crispy ship was going to be the least helpful. Too late to take it back now. "Everyone else focus on your targets."  
"Aye sir."  
"Got it sir."

I turned to face the ship that had uttered the distress call, and found it being fired upon by a Vaktoth that appeared to have no pursuers. I hit my afterburners and shot forward towards the two fighters.  
"Lieutenant," I shouted over the crackling of sparks from my former right VDU, "Head towards me, I'll cover you."  
"Yes sir." Her voice was a bizarre mixture of fear and gratitude that someone had heard her message.

The arrow began to fly towards me. I switched my attention back towards the Vaktoth, readied two Image recognition missiles and awaited the conventional 'ding' telling me I had a lock.

The arrow swerved suddenly upwards. Behind it I saw a faint object, something jettisoned, a decoy.

_Oh Shit._

Even with decoys, missiles are difficult to evade at the best of times. By the looks of the pilot's fighter, she wouldn't survive the hit.

The ding sounded, I hit the fire button and the two missiles shot out towards their target.  
"Damn it, the decoys aren't working!" She was virtually screaming now. Distantly I thought that she must b a kid not long out of the academy. "Its closing!"  
"Eject!" I shouted instantly over the com, already doubting that it would amount to anything, as often as not ejected pilots were caught in the explosion of their own ships, a missile increased the probability of an untimely death somewhat.

Almost before I finished giving the order, I noticed a blurred image, her ejection seat exiting through the open hatch. The screen then showed an empty cockpit. A few seconds later this cockpit was ripped apart by the enemy missile.

I had no idea whether the pilot made it or not, it didn't matter either, she was no longer a priority, dead or alive, the Vaktoth was.

I cast another eye to my targeting display, only to be reminded by the sight of the sizzling mess that it had been reduced to that it would not be much help.

I found the target after a few more seconds, it seemed to be trying to manoeuvre itself behind me. That might have worked when I was focusing on the other confed pilot, but now I was focusing on him outmanoeuvring him wouldn't be too difficult.

"We die for the Glory of Kilrah and the Emperor!"

That sudden statement was howled by numerous Kilrathi voices, a second later space was lit up in a blinding white light that was only partially drowned out by the protective visor. It took me a minute to realise that Salamander and Torrent had destroyed the enemy corvette.

I'd almost forgotten about it.

This was good news for two reasons, one, an enemy capital ship along with its bothersome flak turrets were gone, two, Salamander and Torrent could now help us with the Vaktoths.

Noticing that the enemy fighter as still trying to get behind me, (and wondering briefly what the ship's pilot was playing at,) I killed my engines and started firing while standing still. Not a textbook procedure but I was quite a way from the main battle, and this guy wasn't sending anything my way.

His shields must still have been recovering from the two missile hits, his dorsal shields went down quite quickly and I was able to tear some armour off of his right wing before he finally turned his ship to face me.

Not wanting to be on the receiving end of another gun salvo, I hit my afterburners and shot past the enemy ship. His rear turret kicked in and sent a few shots over my arrow before I was able to swing back around and return fire.

I accompanied the gunfire into his rear shields with a heat seeking missile. I had no idea how much damage I'd inflicted, or if I should have sent two missiles, but the way this pilot was flying told me that it didn't much matter.

His ship was slow and sluggish, the only conclusion I could come to was that whoever I'd told to eject had been able to score a hit or two on his manoeuvring thrusters, either that or the pilot was truly incompetent. I doubted the latter option; the Empire wouldn't shove him in a Vaktoth if he wasn't fit to fly a Dralthi mk 1. And he did have one kill to his name at least.

The missile impacted and instantly his ship started spinning, a trail of fire emerged from the left wing before it broke away. I started firing again, it was hard to score any decent hits with the way his ship was twisting and flailing.

The fighter's destruction finally came in the form of a streak of laser fire from yet another arrow.  
"Now we're even!" Chortled the pilot whose kill I had stolen earlier. Despite myself, I laughed over the com. Things seemed to be looking up for our side.

Looking at my radar, I noticed that there was in fact only one Kilrathi fighter left, the other one presumably having met its end whilst I was firing at the last one.

My rear view display showed a multitude of red and purple lights raining down on a Kilrathi fighter that appeared as a single rickety dot. As I was turning back around to assist, doubting all the while that I'd be able to score any hits before it exploded.

Not long after I hit my afterburners, I saw the face of this pilot appear on the com screen. His cockpit seemed to be collapsing in around him.  
"Savour this insignificant victory apes," he said defiantly, "When my brothers arrive then your scattered atoms shall decorate this system."

He had about two seconds to force a laugh before his ship exploded.

A brief cheer went up from all of us. Even if his words proved to be accurate, a victory is a victory.  
"Good work everyone," Salamander said over the com, "Scar, I'm picking up a distress beacon from a terran ejection pod, you and I will watch over it until an SAR shuttle gets here. Everyone else, head home."

After a round of 'yes sirs', the other ships sped off back towards the Hermes.

I moved the ship as close as I could to the ejection pod before my brain started screaming 'stop you fool before you hit her!' I wasn't sure how much of the battle she'd seen from her spinning ejection pod, but I've found from largely unpleasant first hand experience of ejecting that the sight of a confederation fighter watching over your pod was a welcome sight to say the least.

"Did you get the kill shot?" I asked after I'd stopped.  
"I don't think so, Torrent launched her torpedo before me, and since you only need one." He ended the sentence with what was probably a shrug, it was hard to see.  
"How about you?" He asked after a moment's silence, "How many did you get?"  
"Just the one."  
"One's enough."  
"Yep."

Conversation was sparse due to the fact that there really wasn't much to talk about. The battle wasn't overly spectacular, no one was dead and you can only complain about the slow speed of ASR shuttles for so long. There wasn't really much else to talk about.

It picked up somewhat on the way back to the carrier.  
"Torrent mentioned something about getting a letter from Z'ratmak whilst we were getting suited up." Salamander said conversationally.  
"Oh yes? How is he?"  
"Jubilant, apparently he's still celebrating the taking of the Morpheus system."  
"Morpheus?" I said with a sliver of disappointment, "To the best of my knowledge that system is about as valuable as a plasma gun made out of breadcrumbs."  
"Great, crap all over the good news why don't you?"  
"Sorry, but you have to face the facts tovarish. Its not that great an accomplishment."  
"I know, I know, still its something. And knowing the Kilrathi they might just waste a few ships trying to get it back."  
"Maybe, then again thy may have learned their lesson after the Tarawa's run on Kilrah."  
"Just for once I wish you'd look at a situation with a little less logic and a little more blind, mindless optimism, its good for morale."

I laughed at that and after a moment, so did he.

After a few hours we arrived at the Hermes, a transport ship was docked with it, probably the one Razor had been sent to escort back. I could imagine the relief filled sigh from Salamander at this confirmation of her safety. Well, not really confirmation but it was close enough, probably.

"Need clearance TCS Hermes," Salamander said after a moment.  
"Congratulations guys," Replied a happy looking Jake Coben on both our com screens, "one corvette reduced to dust and zero friendly fatalities. You have clearance."

**Five Minutes Later**

"Excuse me Captain."

I looked behind me and saw a young looking female with inadvisably long hair for a pilot. If she could have fit all of it inside her helmet I'd be very surprised. Judging by the voice, and the fact she was speaking to me, this was the pilot that I'd told to eject earlier.  
"Yes lieutenant?"  
"I just wanted to say thank you sir. For giving the order, if you hadn't then I might have…"

She cut herself off, already feeling somewhat awkward because for the words by the looks of things.  
"You're welcome lieutenant…?"  
"2nd lieutenant Elizabeth 'Skull' Black sir. I'm on loan from the in-system base."  
"I see. Has colonel Trent given you a hard time about ejecting?"  
"Not really," she replied with something that is best described as a cross between a smile and a glare, "He said that given the circumstances it was the right thing to do, and that he'd rather have a live pilot minus the fighter then a dead pilot minus the fighter. He also told me to make sure I bring my ship home in the future."  
"That's fine if you can do it," I said, the paternal oracle of wisdom in me coming to the surface, "But if your ships falling to dust around you then you don't want to hang around too long. We need ships but we need people to fly them even more."

She nodded and presumably searched her brain for some sort of suitable response. When none came to mind she simply said,  
"Thanks again sir." With that we salute and she walked away.

For the rest of the day I got to enjoy the warm fuzzy feeling that comes with saving a life. This was and would probably be the only time in my career that this actually happened so I made sure to make the most of it.

**To be continued**


	5. Damned

**Chapter 5: Damned **

Salamander's perspective

"We are here today to pay our final respects to those ho gave their lives to ensure the survival of the ships and crews of the Hermes carrier group. Without the sacrifices of these brave men and women, it is likely that we would all have died in the Chang Cu system. Their courage and dedication has ensured that the rest of us survive to fight for the Confederation until its inevitable triumph over the Kilrathi…"

If this had been anything other then a funeral then Trent probably would have received a series of contemptuous glares from the rest of us at the delusional words you normally heard from Confederation spokespeople who fed the news networks the exaggerated tales of 'major victories' and 'minor setbacks'.

This was a funeral however, with the sight of the coffin, (just the one for twenty five deceased, (or worse) pilots), resting peacefully on the flight deck, the rest of us were at our most venerable. We needed to hear re-assuring words, even if they were bullshit. That coffin seemed to be laughing at us, at whatever hope we had given ourselves of living through the war and returning to our homes. I could almost imagine a ghostly arm extending from it, a soul of a fallen pilot calling us over, inviting us to follow them into death.

Colonel Trent then went on to read from a list of the twenty five deceased pilots, I stopped listening after the first three. None of my friends were in that thing and truth be told I doubt I would have listened even if they had been. Each name belonged to a pilot, just like any of us, but more importantly, to a man or woman who had been dead from the minute they walked into a recruiting office.

Each name that I didn't block out felt like a swift kick in the gut from a horse.

This war had swallowed up countless lives and spit them out like pips. How many men and women from all over the confederation had been ripped away from the ordinary, peaceful lives that they deserved and placed onboard a warship, to feel nothing but fear, loss, pain and a fiery end?

Distantly, I thought back to the recruitment adverts when I was younger, it wasn't that long ago that I had joined up, so why did it feel like a past life? I still remembered the slogans, 'Fight for your home world', 'Become a hero on your homeland', 'Join the Navy and see the universe.' _Its interesting that they never mention anything about getting your atoms scattered all over the universe._ I wondered if the recruitment adverts of today, for a war that spanned whole generations, were any different.

I doubted it.

I'd joined up simply because I felt that I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't. I still feel that way, but the times in which I would happily trade my soul, fingers and eyes to return to Earth for good were becoming ever more frequent. When I graduated from the academy, roughly halfway through the Vega campaign, the war could have gone pretty much either way, and for a time it went our way. Vega fell into confederation hands, shortly after the Sivar dreadnought went up in smoke, the mess we made of the Sivar-eshrad ceremony on Firekka, so many victories, due largely to one Colonel Christopher Blair, and that wasn't the sum total of his triumphs.

In some ways it seemed ludicrous. So many confederation victories were the result of this one man who sometimes it seemed that he was the only one keeping us in this war whilst the rest of us cheered on from the sidelines.

With the seemingly hopeless odds this guy overcame time and time again, it was something of a surprise that Confed didn't just put him in a fighter, send him to Kilrah and let him smash up the place.

If I sound jealous, I am.

Last I heard he was stationed on some escort carrier or another that was older then the antique muskets in the Natural history museum in London. Why they'd shoved him there I do not know. God knows we could use a pilot like him there.

Anyway, after my mind's wanderings, my attention switched back to the funeral when I noticed the coffin's engine power up. The small box, containing nothing but 25 sets of pilot's wings, small personal effects or photographs. (We couldn't cram 25 sets of uniforms in that thing, and we didn't have time for 25 different funerals),

slowly came to life and gently hovered out into space.

The coffin now seemed to radiate a peace that I had only ever felt from once watching the smiling face of a sleeping pilot, no doubt dreaming about home and happy times before the horrors of war became facts of life for them. Part of me wanted to lap onto that coffin and cling to it as it journeyed into the endless void. Fortunately good sense prevailed over this temptation however.

Next came the honour guard's twenty one gun salute. I flinched as I heard the ear piercing noise of the guns, a lot of us did. Those that didn't were probably too stunned with grief and despair to even notice the gunfire.

When it stopped, we all saluted. I tried to feel the respect and admiration that I had neglected to feel for the deceased or missing in action during the rest of the funeral.

Emotions of all forms get twisted and wrecked during war, more often then not they were weakened, like they were sedated. Other times they come at you with an intensity typically reserved for Heaven and Hell.

I felt the standard sadness, irrational guilt and fear that I normally felt at funerals of pilots that I'd been flying with, but behind it all was something that almost felt like resignation. The best way I can describe it is that I didn't care as much as I probably should have, because part of me knew that I wouldn't have to live with it much longer.

I could only hope that this was me being delusional.

"Dismissed." Trent said after a moment of silence.

The vast number of assembled pilots all moved off to the exit at once, thereby causing large crowds to form as we all waited for the exit to be free of pilots. A lot of those pilots were doubtlessly heading for the rec-room, deciding to either drown their sorrow or fear in alcohol, or just ingest as much as they could before the Kilrathi arrived and we were all forced to remain sober.

As soon as fate provided me with an opportunity to leave the flight deck, I headed towards my cabin. If you can it that, I think the toilet cubicle in the average shuttle is bigger then my living space.

Those who attained the rank of major or above on fleet carriers, or maybe just onboard the Hermes, I wasn't too familiar with Confed's policy on accommodations. Anyway, majors or above were blessed with their own walled living space, somewhere where the snores of pesky lieutenants wouldn't bother you, and you could rediscover what privacy felt like.

Unfortunately, there was virtually no difference between these things and the brig. Featureless and utterly dismal. They were the fleet carrier equivalent of waking up to find the sky outside grey and dreary. Decorations were forbidden; 'Safety hazards' apparently.

For a long while I sat on my bunk and let whatever thoughts wanted to appear do so. I couldn't dredge up the will power to fight off any unpleasant thoughts, and I couldn't sleep, traces of adrenaline still coursed through my veins from the earlier battle, and with all the chaotic thoughts appearing and disappearing within my head, sleep seemed about as likely as, well, I'll think of a suitable example later.

After a few more minutes of my quasi-meditation, I stood up and decided to spend some time in the gym. I hadn't been there in too long a time and it was a time tested necessity for pilots.

Distantly, I wondered if a gym was included in Kilrathi carriers, it made sense, sort of. They had to exercise to keep fit presumably, same as us. If they…  
"Red alert, all pilots up, we are being attacked! This is not a drill! I repeat, all pilots up, this is not a drill, we are under attack!"

Disbelief, for the briefest of moments all I could do was stand perfectly still and feel nothing but disbelief. How the hell could the…

And then it was gone.

With virtually no conscious thought, I ran to the lift.

**TWO MINUTES LATER**

I was still pulling on my flight suit when I sprinted onto the flight deck. The deafening whine of a pilot afterburning out of the flight deck caught my attention for two seconds, and then I started scanning the deck for an available fighter.

There were dozens of pilots, all trying to keep out of the way of launching pilots and at the same time trying to get to a fighter. It was very easy for a magnum launch to degenerate into chaos, especially with as large a fighter compliment as we had. You had to keep a cool head or else you may find yourself being run down by a moving fighter, or caught in the fiery leavings of a thruster. The last thing anyone needed was to sweep away human remains at a time like this.

On of the service elevator brought a thunderbolt to the deck. A quick glance told me that I was clear for a run across the deck and without a second thought I charged at the fighter.

The ladder was already in place when I arrived, the crewman holding it in place gave me a comradely pat on the back as I hurriedly ascended into the cockpit.

Getting the fighter out of the lift and onto the runway seemed to take forever. The missile hit that the Hermes took didn't help matters either.

The deck, and my fighter shuddered. It wasn't a heavy shuddering though, this was different, lighter. A dumbfire maybe.

When my ship was finally lined up with the runway, I punched my afterburners and shot out into space.

It didn't take me too long to notice the streams of gunfire and the numerous red dots on my radar. Then I noticed three of them vanish. Strakha.

That was surprising, even with cloaking technology, these ships were a poor choice for a strike mission involving a fleet carrier. Their armour was too weak to stand up to the flak.

I started looking for the bombers, in and amongst the disturbingly large collection of red dots had to lurk a few torpedo bombers.

I must have flicked through all the contacts three times over before I realised that there weren't any.

My surprise turned into astonishment. This was suicide. Were the Strakha planning to ram the Hermes? Had they outfitted the bombers with cloaks?

I didn't have time for speculation, I'd wasted too much of it already.

I found targets in the form of three Strakha that were flying towards the Archangel, one of our cruiser escorts.

I afterburned into firing range and shot off a heat seeker at the one on the left. Without waiting to see the result I fired at the one in the centre.

It didn't take too many hits before the fighter exploded. The pilot didn't even attempt to evade my fire. I doubt he'd even seen me sneaking up behind him.

I turned my attention to the pilot who'd just received a heat seeker up his tail pipe. Only to be greeted by the sight of a small cloud of debris and an ejector seat. That's what I liked about Strakha, they made for easy kill scores thanks largely to their all round flimsiness.

The third Strakha had cloaked, I didn't try and find him, I just afterburned towards another cluster of potential targets.

As I swooped in on another flight of Strakha, I noticed them fire their entire compliment of missiles simultaneously at one of the four Sheffield class destroyers in our battle group. Then they scattered.

As I turned to intercept the closest fighter, the face of Jake Coben suddenly appeared on my com screen.  
"Attention all ships," she sounded nervous, "Those fighters are all pounding our ships with dumbfires. If enough of them get through things are going to get pretty messy here. Keep them off of us!"

Suddenly it all made sense. This was presumably another kamikaze squadron, sent in to do as much damage to us as possible. If they pounded us with enough dumbfires then we may find ourselves with a fair few ships powered down for repairs by the time the Kilrathi's main fleet arrived in system.

I fired at the Strakha I'd been trying to get in my sights. It was a rushed shot and the first few volleys missed. The pilot started to cloak as the gunfire impacted on his shields.

Before long he was invisible.

I fired off a few token shots in areas that he might be, although probably wasn't, lurking. I wasn't all too surprised when I saw the first few volleys vanish off into the distance.

I was surprised when I saw the final volley impact on the cloaked fighter and blast his wing clean off.

My com screen came alive once more with the screaming face of a Kilrathi who was trying to fight threw the pain of being devoured by the fire and vacuum now residing in his cockpit to utter a few harsh words at me. In the end he failed and the screen went dead.

I didn't need to search for long to find a new target, these buggers were everywhere. How many ships had the Kilrathi sent on this suicide run?

A few hits on my rear shields brought me out of my musings and back into the battle. My rear turret sprung to life and unleashed a few shots at the bothersome Strakha behind me.

I was surprised that I hadn't been before this. Then Coben's words replayed in my head and I suddenly I remembered that it was the capital ships they were after, not us.

"This is the Boston," screamed a jittery looking com officer on my screen, "We're taking hits here guys, a lot of hits, help us out!"

As the com screen went dead, I searched suddenly for the _Boston_ on screen, when I finally found it I found that several Strakha were already bearing down on the destroyer. I afterburned towards it, along with several other pilots.

The number of blue dots on my radar was now starting to match the number of red dots; if we could get enough fighters in the air then this would not last long.

I targeted a fighter that seemed to be making a missile run on the _Boston_, when the ping of missile lock confirmation sounded I set loose a second heat seeker.

Missiles are normally useless against Strakha, their cloaking devices wreak havoc with the targeting systems of missiles. You really had to be within very close range or be firing dumbfires at them.

In this case however it forced the Strakha to abandon his missile run, at least for now.

Two other fighters I noticed didn't have this problem, each launched two missiles at the Boston.

It wasn't long before I found myself within firing range, I let loose another volley, but I was too far out, the pilot could see the incoming shots and get out of the way.

As I prepared to accelerate my ship and get in closer, the Boston's com officer appeared on my screen for a second time.  
"Mayday! Mayday! This is the," his voice was cut off by the sound of an explosion somewhere behind him, "We are abandoning the ship, keep them away from…"

His voice turned into a scream as a blinding white light filled the com screen, it was painful to look at. This light then disappeared from the screen and repapered to my left. For a moment the battle seemed to fade away, as we all, human and Kilrathi watched the TCS _Boston_ explode.

I sat there for a few moments, dumbstruck. Part of me couldn't believe what had happened. These were snub fighters, worse then Darkets, how could they have done this!

No one could have gotten out that quickly. There would be no survivors.

After a few more seconds, a Kilrathi face appeared on my com screen.  
"Soon whelps," the voice was almost gentle, or at least as gentle as a Kilrathi voice could get, "You shall join your pitiful comrades in the void."

Everything seemed to be inviting me to die today.

My mind returned to the battle that was beginning to heat up again.

I found a lone Strakha with what looked like a damaged fuselage and opened fire. I almost screamed as I did so, the outrage and hate finally beginning to punch through the shock.

The fighter died almost instantly, I looked for a second one but found that all the red dots seemed to be vanishing from my radar. As the last of them vanished, Jake Coben's face returned to the view screen.  
"They're retreating." He sounded as shocked as I felt, "All ships," he paused and took in a deep breath, "All ships return to base, you've done all that you can."

I fired a few more shots into space and watched as they hit absolutely nothing. After I finally managed to pry my finger off of the trigger I smashed my fists into my legs, simply because they were there and some part of my brain that remembered common sense told me that punching the control panels would probably do more harm then good.

It was a long while before I was able to calm down enough to fly back to the Hermes. And I think I was one of the first to get back onboard.

**To be continued**


	6. Man down

**Chapter 6: Man Down**

**(Author's note: Just so you know this chapter is more grisly then most.) **

Fool's perspective

_The shot was excellent, or maybe just lucky. _

One minute I'm running, sprinting towards my fighter, looking around me for the umpteenth time to make sure I wasn't going to get run down by a passing Arrow or whatever, and find myself riding out into space as a smear on some guy's wheel.

The ramp is pushed up to the waiting thunderbolt, tense looking crew members are shouting over the din and waving their arms impatiently, I can't hear them but it doesn't take a genius to guess that they're telling me to move my ass.

And then they were gone.

Halfway across the deck, over the noise of elevators bringing new fighters to the deck and the engines of a Hellcat firing up, a deafening low pitched whooshing sound sliced through my eardrums. It lasted for a second maybe.

What came after was worse. In the time it took my brain to tell my hands to cover my ears after the first noise, the Thunderbolt exploded, sending fiery shrapnel in all directions.

The explosion engulfed one technician. What was left of him was more ash then human.

A flying piece of hull ripped another technician in two, blood exploded out of each exposed segment of the woman's segmented body.

In the far corner of my eye, I noticed one of the other pilots, a man in his thirties maybe, he'd been heading for a longbow but changed his mind when the shit started flying. He covered his head and fell to the deck. That seemed like sense; I decided to follow suit; and then another piece of flying shrapnel tore my right arm clean off.

The pain was unlike anything I'd ever felt before, and I don't think there's a suitable comparison, except maybe that getting your guts ripped out by a mountain lion might hurt less.

Cradling the superheated stump where my arm had once been, I fell to the floor and parted with a shameless high pitched whine. Bizarrely, I'd had frequent fantasies as a child about getting injured or killed in dramatic ways, I was something of an eccentric child, instead of fantasising about killing Kilrathi I fantasised about getting killed by them, being the pilot that acts as a decoy, allowing a transport full of civilians to escape through a jump hole or something to that effect.

More recently,( in my darker hours), I'd fantasised about being injured badly enough to get shipped home, still the childhood dreams of heroism crept into them and I was now helping to fend off a Kilrathi boarding party and getting shot in the process.

Two things had separated those dreams from reality. One, the pain had always been bearable, two, the resultant scream had always sounded manly and dignified, much like in your standard holo-movie.

I'm not sure how long I laid there. Looking back I doubt it was too long considering we were under attack. After what felt like an hour I felt hands tugging at my shoulders and legs, hoisting me into the air, (aggravating my wound as they did so).

The set me down onto a stretcher. Distantly, in some corner of my mind that wasn't overcome by the torturous agony, I remembered that medical teams were always lurking near the flight deck, just in case of emergencies.

People were talking, shouting, I couldn't hear them, the pain was demanding all the attention, and if it wasn't then I expect I had a ringing in my ears that would be almost strong enough to shatter my skull.

After a few seconds dithering, during which time they injected me with something, I was hoisted into the air and was carried off with great speed towards the infirmary.

It wasn't until wed been bouncing down the labyrinth of corridors leading to the infirmary that I felt the effects of the drug they'd given me take effect.

The pain in what was left of my upper arm started to numb, don't get me wrong, it was still fucking painful, but at long last it had died down to levels that did not call for any high pitched wailing, (by this time my voice had become pretty much inaudible anyway.)

"Just relax kid, you'll be fine." the voice of one of the doctors, by the looks of things a forty year old, forty a day woman, broke through the haze that had engulfed my brain.

The doctor gave a tense looking half smile before returning her attention to steering or whatever she was doing.

With the pain continuing to die down, my stomach acid decided to make its presence felt. I felt bile rising in my throat, not a good thing if you're lying on your back.

I uttered what I hoped was a suitably urgent grunt, (words were far beyond my reach now), and made a pitiful effort to role onto my undamaged side.  
"Oh Shit!" Another voice shouted.  
"Put him down!" This was the woman again, "Morgan, get him on his side, come on, move it!"

Another hand grasped my shoulder and forcibly flung me onto my left side. They started moving me again before I had time to throw up. I remember feeling a tinge of gratitude, I was bleeding to death after all, nice to know that they weren't wasting time.

I hurled after only a few seconds, the vomit was red with the remains of the stew I'd consumed for dinner, and most of the foul smelling shit found itself clinging to my face. I didn't have the strength to lead over the side of the stretcher, so I vomited onto the edge, forming a small puddle next to my head.

I had time for one more pained grunt as my arm chose to remind me that it was still missing, before I passed out.

That's probably how it all happened anyway; I don't remember most of it. For a lot of it I've had to go by what I was told and what makes the most sense.

**FOURTY FIVE MINUTES LATER**

I guess this would have been the time for a unusually vivid dream, as they patched my back up as best as they could I'd be thrust into the deepest manifestations of my subconscious to confront some inner demon maybe or maybe discover something deeply meaningful about myself.

Like I said though, this wasn't one of my fantasies, this was really happening. Of course I don't know what was happening at this time, I was still out cold. My body presumably was pumped full of stronger sedatives that would keep me sleeping peacefully until this time next year.

At this point I assume that they were growing me a new arm, or maybe attaching it. I'm not too clear on the science of limb regeneration, I don't know whether they grow a new limb and fasted it onto you or whether they grow a new limb out of you like a plant, sprouting from the original flesh and growing into a new limb.

The whole thing's kind of creepy.

The first thing they'd probably do is stop the bleeding, stabilise me and sterilise the wound to prevent gangrene. After that I imagine I was moved to some section of the infirmary of another, filled with highly sophisticated devices which scanned, poked and prodded me several times over before growing me a new limb that was custom built for my use.

Or maybe they just pulled a spare out of the fridge.

**FIVE HOURS LATER**

This next bit I remember more clearly.

I woke up with a warm, fuzzy and vacant feeling coursing through my veins that almost caused me to go back to sleep.  
"He's awake." I heard Adish call out, my brain was sluggish and it took me a while to realise who it was that was speaking, or what had happened, or who I was for that matter. This was some good stuff in my system.

I heard footsteps on the infirmary's deck plating and a few moments later I opened my eyelids, (which felt like bricks) enough to make out the faces of Adish, Torrent, and Razor. My vision was obscured slightly, but it looked like Razor was angry about something.

"How are you feeling?" Torrent asked me.

I grunted something noncommittal and soon found myself drifting off to sleep again.  
"Hey!" Adish said, tapping me lightly on the side of the face, "Wake up kid, we're talking to you."

It seemed I didn't have a say in the matter.

I let loose a heavy sigh and forced as much energy into my weary form as I could.

I opened my eyes and blinked a few times to try and gain more clarity in my field of vision.  
"Alright," I mumbled, "Just tired."  
"I'm not surprised," Razor responded, "They must have used half the ship's sedative supply on you."

A few grins answered this momentary use of humour.  
"What did I?" I cut myself off and fought away a yawn, "What happened?"

They were silent for a few seconds before Razor answered me.  
"A shit load of Strakha came through the jump point along with the corvettes. They were cloaked so we didn't detect them until they were already here. They pounded our ships with dumbfire missiles." She paused, taking in a heavy breath, "The Boston is gone."

The shock and the sedatives delayed my reaction considerably, for almost a minute, I simply stared at Razor, repeating he words in my head over and over again until they sunk in.

In the space of your career, you read reports of Kilrathi atrocities that take the lives of thousands of our people, you fight ships that can make themselves invisible, you see your wingmen die and you force yourself to push it aside and get on with your job.

But sometimes you can't.

It was too much, in what now felt like a very short space of time, I'd had an arm ripped off and I'd just been told that a bunch of Strakha took out one of our destroyers.  
It was at times like this that reality came and whacked you over the head; We were losing. We were dying, and they weren't.  
But we're not dead yet! I screamed to my pessimistic, (and hopefully not realistic thoughts), Confed's been in this situation before remember, and we lived through it. We can still win this thing.

Amazingly, saying that to myself once again made me feel marginally better. Emphasis on 'marginally'.  
"Survivors?"  
"A few life pods made it out," Torrent replied, there was something unreadable in her voice and expression, "Less then ten percent of the crew made it."  
"Shit."  
"What about pilots?" I asked, "How many did we lose?"  
"Just your arm," Adish replied, "Remember, these are Strakha, even with ship killer configurations they're still no match for our fighters."

That wasn't entirely true, but research showed that a competent and alert terran pilot had a reasonable high chance of success against a Strakha. When you're tangling with five or ten of the buggers however things got a bit more difficult.

Still, this boasting was comforting.

There was another silence, this one longer. When the others showed no sign of ending it I tried to prop myself up on my elbows.

I was fairly surprised to find that I now had two elbows. I had gone to sleep with just the one and had not expected it to grow back in my sleep.

Looking at the new appendage, I noticed that there was a circular scar which outlined where my old flesh ended and my new flesh began. The arm was devoid of hair, and looked a lot more pale then the rest of me. Shortly before I was discharged, one of the doctors told me that the colouration would even out before too long, how that worked I'm not sure.

Moving the thing wasn't easy, it felt especially sluggish and weak, and not just because of pain killers, again, shortly before discharge I found out that this should pass.

Anyway, where was I?

"Any idea how long I'm going to have to stay here?"  
"They said overnight at least." Torrent responded.

I nodded, pleased that I wouldn't have to endure the burden of movement. In the current state I was in I'd probably fall over halfway to my bunk and spend the night sleeping on the deck plating.

"That reminds me," Razor said, "Trent told us to tell you you've got the two days off, he says spend time in the simulator, hit the gym and basically break into your new arm."  
"Will do," I replied, "For now though I think I really need to get some sleep."  
"I'm amazed you've stayed awake this long." Adish said before vanishing from my line of vision.  
"Alright, we'll leave you to it." Razor added, moving away towards the door.

Torrent gave me a comradely swat on my undamaged shoulder before exiting. I tried, with limited success, to move my new arm again. It felt too much like a doped up two ton weight and the best I could do was flex two out of four fingers.

Modern medicine is a mixed blessing. In times passed that injury might have gotten me shipped home and I could have spent my days safe in the knowledge that I'd done my duty and couldn't do any more.

Nowadays all a severed arm earned me was two days off, then it was back in the firing line.

I guess it was better that way.

**To be continued. I'll try and get the next one up quickly. Thanks again to all reviewers and sorry it took me so long to update.**


	7. Oppertunity

**O.K. Seeing as i'm uploading 3 chapters at once you can see that i forgot to update on this site again. Sorry. Thanks again to Bien Canonizado for reviewing. I may include a Hakaga or two later on but not for a while.**

Chapter 7: Opportunity

**Razor's perspective**

Sleep was fast becoming a fleeting fever dream. Whenever I closed my eyes I could see screaming officers, pinned down by debris, screaming for anyone to save them from a ship that was dying around them. I could see people trapped behind fallen bulkheads which stood between them and the escape pods. I could hear the screams of people whose voices I had never before met.

That was often the way with carrier groups. Pilots rarely moved from one ship to another. Sometimes engineering staff or medics would be loaned to a damaged ship,sometimes the captains would need to discuss assorted mission briefings and discuss strategies, (although this typically took place onboard the Hermes.)

My point is that I'd never met any of the people onboard the _TCS__Boston, _to me they were just the faintly remembered contents of the destroyer that hovered outside the Rec Room window. Now their faces, or at least the faces that my mind saw fit to give them wouldn't leave me alone. For reasons known only to itself it felt the need to remind me every few seconds that those people were dead.

I didn't feel guilty, at least not on a conscious level. I had done my best and I had failed, there were too many Strakha and not enough of us to cover our ships before the Boston went down. Those were the facts, and as an unwritten rule, you faced the facts. In this case the facts were that I couldn't save the _Boston, _none of us could, and any bullshit subconscious thoughts to the contrary had to be pushed aside and ignored.

Easier said then done.

I couldn't summon the energy to push away the ghosts of the _Boston's_ crew. I was too tired from the shock of losing a ship, the last of the adrenaline leaving my system and worrying about Fool, who if nothing else appeared to be doing alright. Tired though I was though, I wasn't going to get to sleep this night.

Having Salamander constantly breathing down my neck, (literally) wasn't helping either.

Summoning what strength I had left, I shifted onto my back, placing one foot on the floor to ensure I didn't fall out of the bed, (which was barely big enough for one person). I shifted my shoulder so that Salamander's head was resting on it, unfortunately his head just rolled sideways and he started breathing into my chest which was equally annoying.

Yes, despite what the others have undoubtedly told you about our 'reluctance to confess our feelings to each other' or however they've phrased it, we had in fact taken care of that months ago.

We had also decided to keep this strictly to ourselves. Couples onboard the _Hermes _were typically subjected to endless strings of 'awww's' and other insufferable taunts. If we had gone public we'd never have heard the end of it, especially from Fool. His mastery of witty taunts had been used for evil as well as good.

So we stayed silent, deciding to preserve our dignity and not degrade our love with scores of people debasing us. Besides, what with the friendly hostility between Fire wings and Death's shadow squadron, I was technically sleeping with the enemy.

Unfortunately, our silence hadn't saved us, thanks largely to Salamander; the man couldn't keep his features in check to save his life. His obvious worry whenever I got stuck with even the most meaningless of tasks was easier to see then a Kilrathi would be in a public library. Every other day Torrent or Adish, or both, made a point of saying 'Why don't you just tell him?' I'm sure Salamander had to put up with similar questions, of course in his case they were well deserved.

A series of coughs and weary mumblings preceded Salamander's rise from sleep. Semi conscious, he moved his head off of my shoulder and back on to the pillow, the rest of his body moved away a few seconds afterwards.

I couldn't help but smile as I watched him move in his dreamlike state. In the midst of war, defeat, death and hardship, it was memories of moments like this, times when the war retreated into some dusty cupboard in my mind and waited patiently to be let out, (which never normally came when I tried to sleep annoyingly), that I cherished. In spite of everything, I still had moments in my life that I could call happy.

One such moment came when Salamander ventured too far left and vanished over the side of the bed, landing in a graceless heap on the floor of my cabin. I remember briefly thinking that it was a good thing I'd bought that Kilrathi rug online. I'm not sure if it was genuine or not, but it made the place look more welcoming then the grey deck plating.

I looked over the side of the bed as the still dazed conscious Salamander stared absently at the furry rug below him as his mind sluggishly worked to figure out what had happened.

I was able to keep myself from laughing for maybe two seconds. At the sound of it, Salamander looked up at me and from the look on his face that somehow merged joy and irritation, had come to the conclusion that I'd pushed him out.

"Snoring was I?" He asked, pushing himself to his feet as he did so.

I laughed again and he cast a glance at the time display on the far wall. I couldn't see it from here but seeing as he advanced back towards the bed I guessed that there were a few hours left before the day officially started after he moved back to the bed.

I slowly moved over, careful to avoid the fate that had just befallen Salamander. He inserted himself back within the bed and turned around to face me, his right arm under my waist and moved up my back. His left arm brushed a few stray strands of hair behind my ear and came to rest on the back of my head.

I returned the embrace and rested my head on top of his. For a long while we just lay there, silently enjoying our own feelings of contentment.

**Four hours and 39 minutes later**

I woke up and was amazed to see that I'd been able to fall asleep. The ridiculously bright light that served as an alarm clock shone overhead and would continue to do so until I left my quarters. The Navy didn't want any pilots oversleeping or taking a long time to get up, and these lights were the invention of Chief technician Gary who, largely out of a resentment for pilots, strove to prevent it. As such the Hermes was the only ship that had the things.

I moved one weary hand about the bed, searching for Salamander, only to find that he was nowhere to be found. I blinked a few times before this actually set in. This wasn't an overly surprising occurrence, one of us normally got up early so as to ensure that no one saw the both of us exiting the same cabin, or one of us exiting the other's cabin.

Gathering the scattered pieces of my uniform from the floor I headed towards the shower.

**Twenty minutes later**

I found Salamander in the Rec room, downing a coffee a bowl of assorted white synthetic white stuff that would today serve as breakfast.

I snatched some food of my own from the bar and headed towards where he was sitting.

"Morning," he mumbled through a mouthful of food as I sat down.

"Morning," I replied, trying to suppress a grin, no one was around but it was better not to get complacent.

"You might want to hold your breath as you eat that, I think they use this stuff to sterilise the toilets.

I prodded the white stuff with my fork before deciding to start with the coffee.

"You look happy," Fool said happily, appearing out of nowhere and sitting himself in the third seat at the table, "Fun night was it?" He flicked his gaze back and forth between us as he did so.

I responded with an appropriate swat to the head, injuries or not he wouldn't get away unscathed from that.

He grinned and pushed himself to a half standing position.

"Seriously though if you want privacy I'll…"

"Just sit down you idiot," Salamander said whilst grasping one of Fool's shoulders, (the undamaged one thankfully), and pushing him into the seat.

"How's the arm?" I asked before he let out another wisecrack.

"Still pallid." He replied eyeing the deathly pale hand, "That reminds me, are either of you heading out today?"

"Nope, fate saw fit to spare me from patrols today." Unfortunately it was Salamander who said that, not me.

"I am," I said, "Fire wings are being sent to scour the system. Tactical thinks the Kilrathi might send a few more surprises our way before they send their fleet in."

"Yeah good cover story," Salamander said, pointing his empty coffee mug at me, "I'd wager that Trent thought he could force more on the job training on you lot. God knows you need…"

He cut himself off and grunted as I kicked his below his left knee. This was becoming something of a ritual, he'd insult my squadron, I'd kick him, we'd laugh and move on. An interesting rut to get stuck in.

The two of them shared a moronic laugh, I considered kicking the both of them but decided against it.

"Anyway," Fool said after a moment, "The colonel wants me to get to grips with this thing," he gestured at his arm, "Up for a run in the simulator major?"

"You don't need two people to break into your arm," I said with a grin of my own, "You just want one of us to go play with you, right?"

"What the?" I swear his face went pale, "No, I just thought that…"

"The computer does generate more realistic enemy targets," Salamander said, "It would be more help in the long run."

"And you already know that." I added.

"Look, just forget it alright…" Fool's voice had risen, his youthful pride howling in pain, and earning stares from a few weary crew members.

"No don't worry," Salamander said, clapping Fool on the shoulder, "Come on, let's go do battle."

He was almost laughing as he spoke. He nodded to me by way of goodbye and made his way to the lift, Fool almost reluctantly followed, the fun of the challenge apparently having vanished.

I barely had time to down my breakfast, which as Salamander had said actually did taste like toilet cleaner, before I was called to the briefing room.

**Ten minutes later**

"Alright people, quieten down, we don't have time to waste here. The attack yesterday has provided us with a unique opportunity."

The room fell silent. Unique opportunities were normally good things, assuming all went well, something that hadn't been happening much recently.

"Judging by sensor data retrieved from footage of yesterdays fight with the enemy, we have discovered that one of the jump engines built into a Strakha was knocked out by flak fire. Ordinarily we'd have expected the pilot to have activated a self destruct but by the looks of things we must have taken that out too because this image was taken by tracking station Sierra 3 half an hour ago.

Trent pressed a button on the podium and a section of the screen changed to reveal an image of a floating, critically damaged Strakha drifting peacefully through space.

"The pilot's life support system has almost certainly given out by now considering the way its moving, assuming of course that we didn't kill him ourselves. We're hoping that we'll be able to bring this thing back intact; and also that the cloaking device still works, if we can reverse engineer one of those things, it could be a great boost to the confederation war effort."

Another series of mumblings broke out across the room; cloaking devices were a fanciful aspiration for pilots and technicians aside. The thought of sneaking up, unseen on a group of hairballs and unleashing hell into their tails before they realised what was happening sounded more fun then the dogfights that we typically endured. I'm sure Adish would also probably rejoice at the thought of being invisible during a torpedo run.

"I need six volunteers to go out there and bring this thing in."

"Six sir?" Said 1st Lieutenant Florence 'Badger' Mortimer, "That's pretty heavy for wreckage retrieval."

"Considering the importance of what that ship may contain we've decided not to take any chances. Now if there are no other questions, who wants a milk run for a day's assignment?"

I stood up, along with everyone else in the room. This sounded shorter and less dull then a patrol.

Trent looked across the gathered faces, trying to remember off the top of his head who was due for time outside. I knew that wasn't me, and I guessed he did too so I'm guessing he picked me because of seniority and experience, sometimes that was a good thing, most often though it was a curse.

"Alright, Razor you'll lead the mission. Um, Scribe, Sparky, Beck, Kodiak and who else? Trout, you get this run."

We sat down, I noticed a few frowns of disappointment and couldn't help but smile at the thought of the, (hopefully), tedious patrol that I'd avoided.

"Computer, display alpha."

The Strakha image disappeared and the map display zoomed in on a specific area. The _Hermes'_ icon and a single nav point were visible, as was an asteroid field.

"Judging by the current speed and trajectory of the enemy fighter, you should run into here at Nav one, or at least somewhere close to it. We believe that the pilot steered his craft towards this asteroid belt to ensure it was destroyed in the absence of his self destruct system. We don't expect you'll run into any enemies but stay sharp nevertheless, the cats have already caught us off guard once so far, I don't want it to happen again. Questions?"

"Sir," this was Sparky, "If we do encounter any enemies, should we engage or just report their position to the _Hermes_?

"Razor makes the call, but retrieving the Strakha is of the highest priority, if you can engage the enemy then do so."

"Yes sir." I replied.

"Anyone else? Alright then, get suited up, you launch in ten minutes. Dismissed."

**To be continued.**


	8. Surprise

**Chapter 8: Surprise**

**Razor's perspective**

The six of us had been flying for what felt like a solid day, meters were covered slowly and the distance on the nav map between us and the Strakha, (that may or may not be at the nav point) didn't seem to be getting any smaller.

Conversation was sporadic, younger pilots argued about largely nauseating topics such as who was the better pilot, who would receive their ace of aces medal first, who had the more interesting facial hair and so forth, I wasn't really paying attention. I was tempted to order radio silence if only to shut them up, unfortunately there didn't seem to be any reasonable justification for doing so and I didn't want to receive a lecture from Trent about misuse of the radio.

At the academy, one thing you heard every other hour without fail were the words 'stay sharp out there', or something to that effect. The wisdom of those words had been proved countless times with each careless pilot who died because they hadn't been paying attention to their radar.

Normally, when you knew that there were plenty of Kilrathi in whichever system you also happened to be in who was ready and willing to kill you, this was an easy thing to do. When you were in a virtually deserted system it became somewhat more difficult.

I know what you're thinking, what with all that'd happened recently we shouldn't assume that there were no cats about. There might still be some Strakha lying in wait. These were valid points, but something in our heads, experience, instinct maybe, I don't know. Whatever it was told us that all was alright and it was ok to be careless. It felt a lot like high school, I spent many a happy lesson carefully drifting off into thought.

The bottom line was, Strakha aside, the tracking station reported that it was all clear in the Brimstone system, and the trajectory of the Strakha indicated that they were heading back towards the jump hole. Also, if any did decide to pester us, there were six of us, and last and most probably least, being modified to carry jump engines had had a debilitating effect on the Strakha's manoeuvrability.

A few more minutes passed in utter silence, except for the white noise of the Hellcat, after which a new conversation spontaneously broke out. This one seemed more interesting then the others.

"I hear we're getting a new destroyer." Uttered Sparky mater of factly. He made it sound as if the data was for an Admiral's eyes only.

"Oh yeah?" Replied Scribe wearily.

"Yeah, the TCS _Okinawa. _Brand new destroyer, fresh out of space dock." Now he sounded like a car salesman.

"Great." Muttered Kodiak uninterestedly, "So why is it the rest of us don't know this."

What I could see of Sparky's face seemed pleased when it appeared on the com screen, maybe he'd been hoping someone would ask this.

"I listen to things." Came the somewhat anticlimactic reply, I'm not sure what I was expecting really.

"You mean you overheard some bridge officers talking about it when you were busy drinking to the memory of the _Boston_ right?" Asked Captain Brenda 'Trout' Perez, echoing my, hell probably all of our sentiments. "I know what you're like Sparky, any excuse to hit the bottle and you leap on it."

"Fuck you Perez"

"That's Captain to you lieutenant." In an instant, Perez's voice had snapped to the stern, merciless tone typically reserved for irate academy instructors. It didn't seem to phase Sparky though.

"Sorry, fuck you Captain."

"That's enough, both of you." I had no intention of flying with a bunch of bickering idiots on my wing.

Another silence emerged, and I briefly found myself missing the Chang Cu system. At least there I had the Kilrathi to keep me from getting bored.

I almost wished that they'd hurry up and move their fleet in.

**Two and a half hours later **

"I can see it."

All of us instantly looked to our radars at the sound of Lieutenant Beck's report. The next second, a small red dot appeared in the central circle. I switched to my weapons display and locked on an Imrec, just in case.

"Alright people," I said, my focus now much easier to maintain, "Keep your wits about you. I know it looks dead but you never know, let's do this properly and make sure we don't get any nasty surpr..."

"I'm picking up something else."

A silence followed this, why Beck felt the need to keep the information to himself was, initially, a mystery.

"What is it Beck?"

"It's" He cut himself off, confusion interfering with his voice, "They're ours. Three Thunderbolts."

His earlier silence suddenly made sense. With a mission such as this, Trent would make sure that no friendly ships got in our way. Everyone wanted this mission to go smoothly considering the potential importance to Confed. So who the hell were these guys?

"This is Major Samantha Baez of the TCS _Hermes, _please identify yourselves_."_ By this time, three blue dots had appeared on my radar. They weren't moving.

Silence was my answer.

"This isn't right." Scribe muttered under is breath, "What are…"

"Quiet." I hissed to him. "Unidentified Thunderbolt wing, this is Alpha wing out of the TCS _Hermes_, we are involved in a salvage operation of potentially critical importance and your presence here is an interruption of that operation. Withdraw from this area at once."

Again we waited, each of us silently trying to figure out just what the hell was going on. Part of me expected to receive a flickery message from the lead pilot saying that they'd been knocked off course due to a few chance encounters with either Kilrathi or asteroids, and in another part of my brain that I was certain was mistaken, the possibility that…

"Holy Christ!" Screamed Sparky, his voice cutting through the silent tension like a battleaxe, "Incoming missiles, they've…"

He didn't get to finish his sentence.

In the last few seconds of his life, Sparky had pulled frantically at his flight controls and moved to jettison a decoy, but the missiles hit, probably, before his hand reached the console.

A short yelp of pain cut him off in mid sentence, then the green digital head on the radio vanished behind a stream of fire. Then the radio cut out.

"No!" That was Trout, her voice fused with disbelief.

"What the hell are they doing?" Scribe shouted, as if any of us would know.

"Break and attack!" I snapped, my shock finally pushed away by the years of experience and training. "Take them alive if you can. We need to find out who they are and where they came from."

Having said that I doubt that any of us, myself included, would be inclined to show mercy after what had happened to Sparky.

It didn't occur to me at the time that I was shooting at Confederation ships, they had just destroyed one of my wingmen, they were the enemy, simple as that. I couldn't allow myself to ponder on the absurdity of the situation.

"You'll pay for that you fucking Mandarin bastard!" Beck's voice was, understandably, filled with rage considering his friend had just been blown to pieces. I wasn't sure whether these were Mandarins or not, they'd been lying low ever since Ayer's Rock was put to the torch. Like I said though, that didn't matter right now.

One of the Thunderbolts was heading straight for me, I hit my afterburners and charged on a course straight passed him, he opened fire as I did so, my port shields vanished almost instantly, as did some of my armour.

I swung around after I was behind him and instantly found mass driver discharges smashing into my forward shields. Whoever this was, their reaction time was impressive to say the least. They were however, flying in a perfectly straight line, presumably to make operating the rear turret easier. This was more of a benefit for me however.

I strafed to the left, and then to the right as his turret began to track me. After a few seconds of this I let fly two friend or foe missiles.

No matter how good their reaction time, the pilot didn't stand a chance of evading the two missiles with such a short distance between our ships.

The Thunderbolt jolted forward as the two missiles tore into it. The rear shields of the beast vanished as swiftly as my port shield had, a number of hull segments also were torn off of the fighter.

I closed the distance slightly before following up with a neutron and ion gun salvo. I landed several hits, if it had been a Dralthi it would have exploded. Thunderbolts however were renowned for their durability. It required a lot of pounding to kill one.

_I shouldn't be trying to kill one in the first place, what the fuck is…?_

_Not now! Stay focused._

Alright, to be honest staying focused wasn't as effortless as I made it sound.

"This guy's giving me grief guys. Get him off me!"

"Alright, hang in there Kodiak, I'm on my…"

Beck's sentence was brought to an end by the sound of n explosion behind somewhere on his controls, instinctively he shielded his face from shards, even though the helmet was designed to do exactly that, some aspects of human nature you just couldn't fight.

"Ah shit," he said, after swerving out of the sights of whoever was firing at him, "My radar is fried, I can't see a thing. I can't get to you Kodiak.

"I'm on it." I said, "Trout, finish this one off."

"Got it."

I swung my ship away and hastily searched for Kodiak's fighter. When I found it I noticed that she'd taken engine damage. A lot of it, it seemed she wouldn't last long if I didn't get to her quickly.

The key word there being 'seemed'. When I got close enough I noticed that Kodiak, despite an obvious loss of manoeuvrability in her Hellcat, was still managing to evade the majority of her attacker's fire. Of course that could have just meant that he was a poor marksman. It didn't really matter in the end.

I waited for far more seconds then I would have liked for the lock chime t sound, and then launched off two leech missiles. We'd been equipped with these just in case the Strakha turned out to be not quite as dead as we expected. The Kilrathi had duped us before with ships that only appeared to be crippled. Then again, we'd done the same to them from time to time, probably.

The pilot made a decent job of evading the missiles, but to no avail. The decoys and rushed afterburner slide only delayed the impact.

At first it looked like nothing happened. The damage to the Thunderbolt's shields was pitiful. I'd never seen Leeches in action before, they were a fairly new addition to the arsenal and before now there'd never been a great need for them.

The pilot swerved around and began what looked like another attack run at Kodiak. I hit my afterburners and headed towards him, readying my last friend or foe missile.

"Whoo! That's one of the bastards gone." A sinister grin broke out on my face at this news from Scribe.

The Thunderbolt was still heading towards Kodiak. I opened fire the second the green crosshair appeared on my HUD. The pilot pulled his ship upwards; but it didn't change course.

As the first of my hits impacted on his shields I realised that the Leech missiles must have worked after all, except that judging from the ship's movements, shield strength and the fact that a string of gunfire was heading in my direction, it seemed like only his engines were damaged.

Another Hellcat opened fire on the Thunderbolt as I strafed out of the way of the incoming gunfire. I pulled upwards slightly, re-acquired the target, returned fire and watched as his dorsal shields collapsed.

After what may have been less then a second of successive pounding from two angles, the Thunderbolt's canopy blew, I stopped fire and instructed the second attacker, (Scribe), to do the same.

A pilot was launched from the canopy shortly before the ship's self destruct activated itself.

I examined the pilot briefly, definitely human, these weren't commandeered ships.

With five Hellcats raining down fire upon him, the third Thunderbolt wasn't too much of a pest. Especially when he'd already taken damage from two friend or foe missiles, courtesy of yours truly. I couldn't see who got the kill shot.

There was some triumphant chatter after the battle but this soon died out when we remembered that Sparky hadn't made it through.

For a few moments there was silence as everyone tried to catch their breath. After these moments had passed, Scribe said it for all of us.

"What the Hell was that? Why are our guys shooting at us?"

No one answered right away, I inhaled heavily once, trying to force memories of Sparky's dying scream away until I was no longer in the cockpit.

"Listen, one of them ejected, when an SAR shuttle arrives and taken him back to the Hermes we'll figure out just what the hell happened here. Until then let's finish what we came here for."

I paused as I hurriedly located the Strakha on my radar.

"Right, I'll tractor that thing, Scribe and Kodiak, you cover me. Trout, you and Beck keep an eye on the ejection pod under SAR gets here."

"Understood." Trout answered, her voice sounding numb.

"Whatever." Beck replied a few seconds after. Not exactly a textbook response considering he'd just lost a friend I decided to let it slide this once.

"Alright, Kodiak, Scribe, let's get going.

**Six hours later**

As you can probably imagine, Colonel Trent had a few things to discuss with us upon our return.

"Tactical's analysed the flight recorders from your ships, with the exception of Beck's which was damaged beyond repair. We're all pretty convinced that these, people, attacked you without provocation and that you followed standard procedures prior to the engagement."

"Thank you sir." I'm not sure exactly why I was thanking him but it seemed the most appropriate thing to say.

"It will still be several hours before the SAR shuttle arrives, we'll commence a chemtank interrogation when it does." He paused and momentarily gave us a facial expression that looked vaguely like he had just swallowed engine grease.

"Do you have any idea who these people were? Or why this happened."

I cast a quick glance at Kodiak and Scribe. They both shrugged.

"None sir. But I can't believe they just stumbled across us, or that Strakha for that matter."

"Agreed."

"Speaking of," Scribe butted in his voice sounded scornful. Maybe he thought Sparky had died to retrieve a worthless heap of junk. "What's the word on that Strakha Colonel? Are we going to unravel the secrets of cloaking devices soon?"

Trent shot him a glare.

"Its too early to say. We'll be moving the thing to the Confederation's headquarters at Vespus. One way or another, you all did good work out there. And I am sorry about Sparky."

I nodded once, I didn't see the other's responses.

"Unless there's anything else you'd like to add…?" None of us answered this.

"Very well then, dismissed."

**To be continued **


	9. Titan

**Chapter 9: Necessity**

**Adish's perspective**

At least I couldn't say I was bored.

Mine deployments should by all rights be tiresome affairs, and usually they were just that. Move so many meters, deploy a mine, move on another few meters, deploy another one, move off when you're finished and wait patiently for the other ships to drop their mines. Spend your time pointing out large gaps in the field which could be exploited.

As often as not however, mine deployment missions involved a race against time. Either you finished first and got the hell out of there before the Kilrathi did, or the Kilrathi arrived first and used your slow fighter which had numerous high yield explosives strapped to it for target practice. That made such missions tense things at best.

Normally a destroyer or two would have been sent to help us. Our Longbows could carry roughly sixteen mines each, however since we had been outfitted with friend or foe missiles for defence purposes, we were carrying only eight mines apiece.

I'm not sure how many mines a destroyer could carry, but it was undoubtedly much more then we could. Just one of them would make this job go a lot faster.

However, considering what was likely to be coming through that jump hole any time now, and that any cap ships in the area would likely meet their demise if they stayed too close to the enemy's entry point, it had been decided that we'd have to do this the slow, safer way.

Having said that, no one was too optimistic about our chances of survival if the enemy came through whilst we were still working. Granted we stood a higher chance of getting back to the Hermes with our lives, however Longbows were not renowned for their ability to outrun hostile ships. Enough Darkets or Vaktoth on our tail and we wouldn't stand a chance.

I shook the thought from my head and brought my ship to a stop as I reached the new nav point. I spent a few seconds shifting the beast in order to get as close to the nav point as possible before I deployed the sixth mine.

"Proceed to next waypoint." Uttered the insufferable computer voice for the sixth time. Why the person or persons who had designed this thing thought we needed to be reminded of such things as where to fly I did not know.

We weren't expecting any friendly ships to come through the Chang Cu jump hole so we'd disabled the self destruct. Each of these mines wouldn't explode until they a) collided with a Kilrathi ship, b) collided with a careless Confederation pilot, or c) malfunctioned.

The seventh nav point wasn't too far away. There were already a number of mines clustered n this area so I slowed to a snail's pace. The radar was no help, the yellow dots had all fused into a single yellow section that covered over half the radar. I had to rely on my eyes, and I couldn't see much to begin with.

Fortunately I didn't hit anything. I launched the seventh mine at the nav point.

"Proceed to next waypoint."

"Ah shut it."

The eighth waypoint was in a nicer location, several kilometres away from the jump point, there weren't too many mines around the area either. I'd half expected it to be right next to the jump buoy, along with fifty mines to contend with.

I increased speed once I was away from the largest clusters. Getting to the eighth waypoint wasn't a problem.

"Mission objectives achieved." The computer uttered pleasantly once I'd deployed the last mine.

"This is Haajanen", I said, trying to keep relief out of my voice, "I've finished here, your turn Mongoose."

"About time, I thought the war might end before you got finished."

Maybe I should have responded to that, but I was abruptly too weary to do anything except fly over to the four assembled Longbows and two Thunderbolt escorts that were pointed at the jump buoy. Waiting to hurl torpedoes at whatever came through the jump point, assuming something came through that is.

My mind began to wander the second I took up a position near the jump point. Specifically it wandered towards the question that had been on everyone's mind recently, why were our own people shooting at us?

The ejected pilot from the Thunderbolt wing that Razor's wing had taken out two days ago had committed suicide before the SAR shuttle had returned to the Hermes. He had done this via the aid of a cyanide pill concealed in his flight suit. The marines were caught off guard and could not stop him in time; no one was expecting the man to end his own life.

What we had been able to determine was that the wing had launched from the base on Brimstone 2. The base's commander had vowed to start an investigation to weed out any more potential traitors in our midst.

The most popular theory so far was that we were dealing with Mandarins. God knows that the majority of them would be willing to die for their moronic cause, and Confederation pilots had been known to defect to the society of Mandarins in the past.

This was all speculation however, in reality we didn't have a clue who these people were, or even if there were any more of them. Those three we had dealt with might have been the only ones for all we knew.

I shifted in my chair slightly, trying in vain to get comfortable. Despite the systems built in to the seats that massage the muscles or do something to prevent deep vein thrombosis, extended sits in a fighter had a habit of feeling like sitting on concrete.

"There's a film on tonight in the Rec room," Torrent said from the Thunderbolt on my right, "You going?"

"What is it?"

"Something called Vengeance's fire. Its new, popular back home apparently."

"Let me guess, another riveting action movie designed to stir up patriotism among the civilian population."

"I think you're reading too much into it. It's the popular genre at the moment."

"Maybe, still, I don't think its for me. Maybe I'll sit this one out."

"This one and every one, it wouldn't kill you to step outside your quarters for more then just meals."

I sighed and was on the verge of acquiescing when it happened.

Light erupted on my view screen; even with the protective visor it was a strain to see anything. At first I thought a cluster of mines had detonated, then, in the top left corner of my view screen I noticed a hint of swirling blue light.

"Oh my God."

"Look at the size of that thing." Uttered one pilot in disbelief, I couldn't see who. Whoever it was though, they were right. That wormhole was huge, as was what was about to come through it.

Although in reality it was probably only a few seconds, to us it felt like an eternity between the jump point opening, and the sight of the claw like bow of a H'varkann class dreadnought emerge from it.

"What the fuck is that?" Screamed one pilot, the second Thunderbolt pilot I think, I didn't recognise the face. Clearly they hadn't read the latest edition of Joan's fighting spacecraft.

Disbelief was my first reaction. These ships were almost mythical, due partially to the newness of these new Kilrathi behemoths, but due mostly to the fact that almost no one had ever seen one and lived, no one human anyway. Just one of these annihilated the _Quinson_ carrier group. Imagine how much more easily it could deal with us.

Intelligence reports, the ones that humble first lieutenants were allowed to see, stated that the Empire only had one of these things. In terms of practicality however that made little sense.

After the initial disbelief wore off, fear began to replace it. That ship was a monster. Gun turrets seemed to cover every square inch of the gigantic hull. The sizable docking bay in the centre of the bow looked ready and willing to spew forth God knows how many fighters at us.

"All ships," Major Jennifer Reed, our Wing commander was almost screaming at us, "Run! Fall back to the _Hermes_, Mongoose get the hell out of there!"

"Yes ma'am!"

It was surprisingly difficult to break eye contact with that beast. Don't ask me why but some instinctive part of me felt it would be safer not to turn my back on it. Rationality soon set me straight and I soon found myself afterburning away from the dreadnought as fast as was possible.

I switched to my rear view display and noticed a number of explosions erupting on the hull, the mines detonating on the ship's shields. If they were having any affect you wouldn't know it. The tactical display showed all four sections of the H'varkann's shields as blue, indicating that they were still at near full strength.

I shook my head in disbelief. Just a few of those mines could take out a Dubav class light carrier, granted there was nothing light about what was following us, but still with the amount of mines we'd been piling up in the last three days, you'd expect that at least some damage would be done to the dreadnought.

A sudden flash of red caught my eye on the radar.

"Incoming fighters!" I shouted before switching my targeting display to show the new arrivals. "Vaktoths, four of them."

I checked my fuel gauge; I seemed to be running out of fuel twice as quickly as normal.

"Make that eight." Torrent said after a few moments, "They've launched a new wing."

_Shit!_

I checked my display again, hoping that the mines might be wearing down the shields of the dreadnought. No such luck. We might as well have been throwing rocks at them.

Suddenly, something started to make sense. Sending that titanic monstrosity in first allowed them to clear way whatever defences we may have left lurking around for them, be that fighters, capital ships or mines. That H'varkann was also clearing a nice path for the rest of the litter to follow. Even if it did take some damage it would be superficial at best, easily repairable.

An unexpected Kilrathi scream then sounded on all our radios, the pilot presumably intending to spit out an insult but instead amusing us all with his dying howl after he blundered into a mine.

An unexpected grin broke out on my face, at least some of the mines were taking out enemy ships. First blood to us.

This momentary respite soon came to an end when I saw a familiar face on the com screen.

"They're shitting all over me, I can't dodge…" Mongoose's words degenerated into a scream as her fighter was gunned down by the H'varkann's flak fire. This scream was also cut off in an instant. Death it seemed didn't take long when one of those things was dishing it out.

In answer to any shock, sadness or further disbelief that might accompany this death, my mind forced itself to focus almost of its own accord. I spared one hating glance for the thing following us before I turned my attention back to the radar.

Two more red dots vanished. A savage laugh almost escaped my lips. Drakhai these weren't.

We were putting distance between ourselves and the dreadnought, however the Vaktoth were closing on us. We couldn't hope for the mines to take them all out, or that our rear turrets would be sufficient to take out our pursuers.

We continued running for another two minutes before Reed's face reappeared on the screen.

"Alright, everyone arm two friend or foe missiles, on my mark, full stop and come about. Launch your missiles at the closest target and then keep running. Try and get a ship no one else is shooting at."

A round of 'understood's' and 'yes ma'am's' followed this. I prepped two missiles and selected a Vaktoth that was little under nine kilometres away. This was wasteful, and there wasn't time to plan our attack and ensure that we didn't all take out the same target, but we didn't have a choice. We couldn't stick around for a dogfight.

"Now!"

Almost in unison we stopped, I swung my ship around and pointed it at the approaching Vaktoth, waited, heard the lock confirmation, and fired.

The missiles sped away from me and towards my target that was already beginning to evade the missiles. I tracked them as best as I could on the radar as I swung back around and re-activated my afterburners.

The enemy fighter remained undamaged, I'm guessing the missiles impacted on a decoy. Other enemy ships weren't so lucky however.

Torrent's target died, as did Reed's as well as two other Kilrathi fighters. They were down to just two pursuers, and one of them had taken a fairly serious hit.

"They're falling back," Said Lieutenant Ryan Schneider after we'd been running again for another thirty seconds.

I grinned again as I imagined those two pilots trying to justify their failure to their C.O. A shame that zu'kara didn't count for the kill board.

"I'm picking up more enemy contacts," Reed stated, "looks like two Fralthi carriers just jumped in behind the dreadnought. I'm also picking up four Dralthi heading our way.

I should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

I resisted the urge to look at fuel gauge, I didn't want to know that I had about three seconds worth left. I also didn't want to give anxiety a foothold.

"New contacts," Reed said again, "Kamrani, transports, at least five Sorthak." She sighed, I could almost feel the sadness emanating from it, "This is it boys and girls. They're here. It is imperative that at least one of us gets this data back to the _Hermes_. We can't let them be caught off guard by that thing."

Be that as it may, escape seemed doubtful at best. We had a fair lead on the enemy ships, but the gap was closing, on top of that we were running out of fuel, and the bombers were slowing everyone down.

"Stay alive all of you, that's an order."

"What? What the hell are you talking about Major?"

It wasn't until I saw one of the blue dots on my radar head back towards the ever growing collection of red and orange dots that I knew what she was talking about.

"Are you insane?" Screamed Schneider.

"Get back here Major," I added, "Your dying won't slow them down."

"We don't have any other option, I'll buy you as much time as I can, and I'll take as many of these hairy bastards with me."

Part of me wanted to turn back and fight alongside her into a quasi-heroic death. This was pointless though, even if all but one of us turned back to fight, we wouldn't hold back the advancing fighters for long. Reed had made her choice, all I could do was try to make it count for something.

A lot of yellow dots began to emerge from Major Reed's Longbow. Each heading towards a red dot.

Some veered away whereas others appeared to fly straight into the missiles. One of the red dots vanished. If the pilot had any thoughts about dying he kept them to himself.

I wanted to pull my eyes away, to force myself to focus on something other then my wing commander's upcoming demise. Still, she was making the ultimate sacrifice for us, the least I could do was pay attention as she did so.

Kilrathi fighters closed in around her, I could picture it with unnerving clarity in my mind, her bomber being smashed from all sides, her own weapon's fire becoming more sporadic, her shield's failing, segments of hull being torn away.

And then she was gone, the red dots moved away from each other to reveal the absence of a blue dot among them.

I felt a stinging behind my eyes and tried, with limited success, to stop the tears before they arrived. This wasn't the time for mourning; not that my body seemed to care about this however.

They were still heading towards us; Reed had given her life to slow them down for maybe twenty seconds. I could only hope it would be enough.

**To be continued.**


	10. Hunted

**Again, sorry its taken me so long to update, I've had exams to contend with. Fortunately they are over and updates should start becoming more frequent. Thanks to ****Bien Canonizado for reviewing.**

**Less fortunately, I'm going to have to start this chapter with a fairly long author's note in response to your last review. I considered your suggestion for giving brief descriptions of the ships but I couldn't write these in a way that fit in with the narrative. If anyone you're trying to get into the story, (thanks for doing so by the way), needs to know about what the ships look like then you could direct them to **http/ should be revealed there.

**Some of the ships you requested I can include, specifically the wc2 ones. Others I can't. The Tiger shark and the Piranha I cannot include simply because this story is set before they came into existence. You should find some of your requested ships soon however.**

**As for Blair, I haven't decided yet whether to include him or not. Also the confederation should be going on the offensive, (sort of), quite soon. Snakiers and Hakagas may very well show up, just not for a while. Snakiers at this time were nearing obsoleteness and were reserved for less important systems, also there aren't many Hakagas around. Still, be patient, they should arrive before too long.**

**Right, i think that's it.**

**Chapter 10: Hunted **

Torrent's perspective

I never thought I'd be so enthused about flying towards an asteroid field.

Captain Karl Von Tieschowitz, the highest ranking pilot left in our wing, had discovered a nearby asteroid field that lay not too far away from us. Distantly I remembered the awkward flight path we'd taken on the way here to avoid it. He'd ordered all of us to charge at it at best possible speed. It was the best chance we had of evading our pursuers.

It was lucky that on of us had been paying attention to the Nav map. All I'd thought to do was run and if possibly run faster. I'd have to keep this incident in mind for future reference, assuming I lived through it.

Rather unsurprisingly, the largest problem that we faced was one of fuel. We'd be able to get pretty close to the asteroid field with afterburners, but after that we would be forced to fly towards it at cruise speed, giving the Kilrathi more then enough time to close the already narrowing gap between us and blow us all away. Also, even if we got into the field, there was nothing to stop their far more manoeuvrable ships following us.

What we needed to do was lose our pursuers in the field, then shut own as many systems as possible, if our electronic emissions were sufficiently low, we'd be able to move away from the Kilrathi unnoticed.

Hopefully.

I checked my tactical display, the closest ship to us were a wing of four Dralthi that had jumped in with two enemy cruisers. They were a little over 23 kilometres away. What fleeting hope I had that we'd be able to make it to the field without incident died with that discovery.

**Seven minutes later**

My speed indicator switched from 1000kps to 380kps. I still had a drop or two of fuel left, but one of the Longbows had run out, and it made more sense to stay together. None of us probably would have been able to accomplish anything more then a fifteen centimetre lead anyway.

The distance between us and the Dralthi was closing fast. I could imagine the looks on the Kilrathi's faces now that their prey could no longer run fast enough to evade them.

The asteroid field was visible, barely, I could make out brief hints of grey rocks in the distance, they seemed very far away.

My 'lock' light sprung to life abruptly, sending a surge of panic through me. I released a decoy and pulled upwards, hitting my afterburners ad spending what little fuel I had left as I did so.

The alarm and the lock light died in unison. The missile had detonated on the decoy. I didn't feel much in the way of relief seeing as I was now falling behind the others.  
"We're not going to make it with these hairballs hounding us," Tieschowitz said suddenly, "All units, break and attack, let's make this quick people."

I pulled my ship around and launched one of the four remaining image recognition missiles that I had left at the nearest Dralthi. It was somewhat helpful that the pilot had neglected to deactivate his afterburners when eh engaged us, he was probably trying to close the distance to make targeting us easier.

The downside, for him anyway, of dong this was that he had little time to evade the missile heading at him, and also the increased speed of the collision resulted in greater damage to his ship.

The explosion ripped off the right wing of the Dralthi, sending what was left of the ship into an uncontrollable spin. I fired off a few shots for good measure, and sure enough the rest of the enemy fighter exploded.  
"That's one down." I said quickly, trying not to waste time in acquiring a new target.

My rear turret suddenly sprung to life, I switched to my rear view display and noticed a second Dralthi hovering behind me.

He opened fire a second later.

My ship shuddered under the multiple impacts. None of the shots missed.

I pulled right, the Dralthi stayed with me, after a few second he opened fire again, the first shots barely missing me, the next few tore away what was left of my rear shields.

My ship shuddered again, and my hand was knocked away from the flight controls.

Then the shuddering stopped.

I pulled away regardless, not wanting to tempt fate. I checked my radar, the Dralthi was gone, and a blue dot was moving away from where it had been, I checked my contact list quickly to see who it was who ad presumably just shot the enemy off of my tail.  
"Thanks Adish." I said quickly.  
"Don't mention it." He replied, "Two down."

I activated my damage control display. My rear turret was gone, as was most of the durasteel armour I had in that section. My engines had taken minor damage that according to the computer was seconds away from repair. Not nearly as bad as I had feared. I had expected to find myself confined to 50kps for the next hour or so.  
"Three down." Tieschowitz added after a few more seconds. The enemy were beginning to succumb to our greater numbers.

If our roles had been reversed and confederation pursuers had been suffering at the hands of the Kilrathi, the surviving pilot would most likely fall back and join the second wave of fighters closing in on the enemy.

The remaining Kilrathi had other ideas.

I pulled my ship around so as to get him in my gun sights and readied another missile. We didn't have much time left. The Sorthak were closing on us. In our current condition we were no match for them.

The Dralthi veered to the left, he was moving very quickly, I wondered briefly if he was in fact going to pull back to his friends after all. That was until I saw his ship collide with Lieutenant Schneider's Longbow. The Dralthi went up immediately, Schneider's fighter spun momentarily before coming to a stop.

The entire aft section looked charred and mutilated. Pieces of hull had been torn away, atmosphere was leaking from one hull breach, fire from two others.  
"Schneider," Tieschowitz shouted, "What's your status, can you still fly."

After a second, Schneider's face appeared on the com screen. Accompanied by smoke and what sounded like a continuous electrical discharge from somewhere behind him.  
"My engines are shot, that bastard took out every…" he cut himself off, barely keeping a lid on his panic, I couldn't blame him, "I'm dead in the water." There was another pause, this one longer. "Look, all of you keep going, I'll stay here, try and distract them."

Tieschowitz's face appeared on the com screen but it was a few seconds before he said anything. He was clearly struggling with the responsibility and the hard decisions that he had to face. These weren't things typically cast upon Captains.

I have to say however, he performed well.  
"You heard him," he said after a moment, "We have to keep moving, quickly people, we don't have much time. The Hermes needs this data."

Ordinarily we could have trusted the tracking stations to report this find to the Hermes and the other ships in the system. Unfortunately, a fair few of the Strakha that had destroyed the Boston had encored with the destruction of the three tracking stations that monitored the jump hole. The stations boasted neither heavy armour nor decent defences, and several kamikaze wings had been able to slip through the flak fire.

This left us effectively blind. We did not have any Prowler class corvettes in our presence, sending a destroyer or a cruiser to the jump hole would be foolish to say the least and would leave us with one less ship with which to fight the enemy.

It was pure luck that we had been where we'd been when the Kilrathi came through. It was a truly a miracle that we had survived this long.

We started moving again, each doubtlessly cursing themselves for wasting time, and then cursing themselves for considering listening to what were doubtlessly going to be Schneider's last words a waste of time. That was what I did anyway. At this time my mind was largely becoming a mess. The Sorthak were closing quickly, and the chances of us reaching the field before they reached us were becoming slimmer by the second.

In the radar I noticed a small swarm of red dots advancing on the stationary blue dot. Schneider's Longbow wouldn't even slow them down. All it would take was a few gunshots and he'd be gone. He probably wouldn't be able to even return fire.

As the five red dots closed in on Schneider, his face returned to our com screens. I think he was crying.  
"Jamie, Cassandra, this is for you."

As his face vanished from the screen, space lit up behind me.

I switched on my rear view display and witnessed an explosion far more powerful then the destruction of a Longbow should have been able to produce. An explosion like that was often the result of a small cap ship blowing up, or…

Mines.

In that instant it made sense. Schneider had waited until the Sorthak were close enough, then he'd detonated all twelve mines in his ship's arsenal. It was surprisingly, and almost a little disturbingly comforting when I realised his death would have certainly been quick and painless.

I checked the radar. Only two Sorthak remained, I fired up the tactical display and noticed that one of them was in no better shape then Schneider's bomber had been in before he sacrificed himself. The other appeared to have stopped completely; the explosion must have damaged his engines.

The first of the remaining Sorthak's wasn't foolhardy enough to continue the chase. The dot on the radar soon moved back towards the orange swarm behind us.

"He's done it." Python, (the second Thunderbolt pilot,) was almost shouting, "They're falling back." "And they can't reach us before we reach the field." I added, my voice betraying a weariness that had abruptly fallen upon me. I pushed it away as best as I could. We weren't out of the woods yet; not nearly.  
"Don't get careless," Tieschowitz added, "the cat's got careless and look what's happened to them already."

He was right. We'd been hopelessly outnumbered, and we'd had a H'varkann to content with, and on top of that we'd already taken out thirteen enemy fighters and severely damaged four more. Not bad.

"I'm reading new hostile contacts," Adish uttered, relief at the Sorthaks' defeat evident in his voice, "Darkets, eight of them."  
"They just don't learn do they?" Python added.  
"We're almost at the field," Tieschowitz said, "maintain radio silence, and deactivate all systems except engines, radar, shields and life support once we get inside the field."

Now came the hard part, or the easy part, depending on how fate favoured us in the field.

**Eleven minutes later**

In the course of my career I had noticed two different types of asteroid field. Some were largely empty and allowed plenty of room for ships to manoeuvre and after burn without too much risk of collision just so long as you employed a little common sense.

The second type of asteroid field was so densely packed that the space dust has a hard time moving through it. This field fell into the latter category.

This did have its good points, the density of the field made it all the more difficult for the Kilrathi to locate us, if things kept going as they did we might be able to sneak through the field and run back to the Hermes. Unfortunately, the density of the field also resulted on restrictions on our speed. We were travelling at 120kps, at this speed the H'varkann may very well reach the Hermes and Brimstone 2 first.

Actually that was unlikely, the Kilrathi would assemble their fleet first, maybe send in a few patrols to determine or perhaps weaken our defences. They wouldn't strike for a day or two at least.

I could still see the H'varkann. By now it was a tiny blotch in the corner of my rear view display. I couldn't tell exactly how far away it was, but I knew that any other ship in both the Confederation and Kilrathi fleets would be invisible at this distance.

Even if we were able to warn the Hermes, there was little they'd be able to do about that abomination except run away from it. We didn't stand a chance against it.

But we couldn't keep running.

Retreating only pushed us back further into a corner. The Kilrathi weren't overextending themselves, and they weren't going to. We needed to draw the line somewhere.

Desperation and defeat had stared us in the face twice before, once before the now legendary mission of the TCS Tarawa, again at the battle of Earth. Now the Confederation was feeling the noose tightening around its neck for a third time. We were falling back on all fronts, and losing many more ships then the Kilrathi. We needed to…

I shook the thoughts away. I'd had this train of thought several times before and no good had ever come out of it. Besides, an asteroid field wasn't a good place for a daydream.

I pulled my ship underneath a large piece of rock that lay in my path, smaller fragments impacted on my shields, not doing any considerable damage. I didn't know how long we'd be in this field, the majority of our navigational equipment had been deactivated to lower our electronic emissions. All we had to go on was one white crosshair telling us what direction to fly.

It was a shame we couldn't rely on autopilot in a field of this density. I could use a rest after the overly eventful sprint into this field. But that wasn't an option. Maybe colonel Trent would give us some time off after we got back.

_You humans are laughable creatures, shying away from every challenge fate gives you._

Along with the memory of Z'ratmak's assessment of humanity, I could almost see the stern look of disapproval on his face at my desire to be out of the firing line for a while.

Z'ratmak thrives on hurling himself into danger with barely any regard for his own wellbeing. More then one marine under his command had been known to describe him with such adjectives as 'insane', 'suicidal'. To him, the quality of one's life depended on how many adrenaline rushes had been crammed into it. I'm sure he'd love this situation; if he were a pilot that is.

I shook this thought away as well and silently cursed myself for my complacency.

I looked ahead, taking in the view of endless grey rocks. There seemed to be no end to the asteroid field.

**Three hours later**

For what seemed like hours, we just sat there, staring at it.

They shouldn't have been able to see us. We were still in the field. The end was now in sight, however the inconveniently placed Kilrathi light destroyer and its two Vaktoth escorts. No doubt they'd been placed there so as to prevent our escaping out of the field and warning the Hermes, or failing that, they could simply radio our position to the rest of the Cats and the chase could start all over again.

After a few more seconds of staring, Tieschowitz's face appeared on the com screen.  
"Listen up people," he said in a rushed voice, "We don't have a lot of time before the fur balls lock down on this transmission. Adish, you and I will both launch a torpedo at the destroyer. Python and Torrent take out the escorts and do it quickly. If we're quick we might just blast through without the rest of the beasts noticing us. Let's go.

With that he closed the com channel and increased his thrust to maximum. That was a risky thing to do considering we were still in the asteroid field, but what choice did we have?

I powered up all of my ship's systems, increased power to my engines and sped out of the field. Well, I guess sped isn't a suitable choice of words really.  
"Python, take the one on the left, I've got the other one."  
"Right."

I fired all of my remaining image recognition missiles at the Vaktoth. The pilot didn't react at once, maybe he was surprised to see us.

When he did react, it was with experience that he dodged the first missile. He deployed a decoy and strafed to the left. The first missile sailed gracefully into the decoy and exploded.

The second two fared better. The pilot didn't even have time to scream.  
"Got one!" I shouted.

I pulled up the second Vaktoth on my targeting display and moved after it. Judging by the way it was moving it seemed that Python had the same idea that I did, although his missiles looked to have met with less success.

I noticed gunfire in the distance that seemed to be coming from a Thunderbolt; it was somewhat difficult to tell at the distance that seemed to have grown between our two ships very quickly.

As I continued to move at an agonisingly slow pace towards the dogfight, I heard a pained Kilrathi voice on the radio. There was no accompanying face.  
"My clan shall avenge my…"

The voice was cut off as the area was lit up by the exploding destroyer.

Almost involuntarily, I let out a celebratory cheer. Even if we met our death here, that destroyer kill strengthen my belief that we'd taken enough of them with us.  
"The second Vaktoth is down." Python said after a few more seconds, "Killed the fur brained fool as he was gawping at the toasted cap ship."  
"Great," Tieschowitz replied, "Let's move it people, we don't know if they got word of our position off or not. Resume radio silence."

I quickly set my speed to full and re-entered formation with the others.

**Four hours later**

All of us except Tieschowitz actually laughed with sudden joy when the Hermes appeared on our radar. When the H'varkann had come through the jump hole, I'd never expected to see her again.

Jake Coben's face appeared on our com screens before we could request landing clearance.  
"Holy shit, what happened to you guys out there?"  
"We'll explain when we get onboard." Tieschowitz replied, his voice echoing all our desires to get out of the cockpits.  
"Fine, you've got clearance as soon as the two Arrows from Delta wing are onboard." He paused and shuffled closer to the com screen, "They're here aren't they."

I can only assume that Tieschowitz nodded in response because Coben's face took on an abrupt look of shock.  
"Shit." He murmured to himself. After a few more seconds he closed the channel.

After a few seconds the two Arrows disappeared from sight.  
"Good work everyone." Tieschowitz said, already accelerating towards the carrier. "Me and Torrent took the most damage so we'll head in first."

I increased my speed and headed for the launch bay. Enjoying the fact that for the moment, the threat of an upcoming Kilrathi attack was drowned out by my own relief at being back alive.

I knew this feeling wouldn't last long, especially considering three pilots who hadn't been so lucky. Triumph rarely went untainted in this war.

**To be continued.**


	11. Revelation

**Hmm, I noticed the hyperlink wasn't included on the last author's note. Its www wcnews dot com, in the ship database section. Hopefully the mangling of it will allow it to show up.**

**Chapter 11: Revelation **

Fool's perspective

As you can probably imagine, things were a little tense onboard the Hermes at this time.

As me and Adish were making our way to the briefing room, we noticed more then a few jittery looking officers and technicians running from here to there, some with assorted pieces of equipment in their hands. We also received more then one irritated shout of 'watch where you're going'.

Being in a system with a H'varkann class dreadnought on the other side of it is an experience probably a lot like having a scorpion loose in your cabin. Even if you can't see it, you still know that it could, and would probably kill you.

That's not a great analogy. I never could think of a better one though.

We shared a life with two bridge officers who were staring intently into a sheet of paper. A coded Kilrathi transmission maybe. They didn't seem to notice me and Adish entering the lift when it stopped. I felt a brief stab of envy for the distraction that had been granted to them.

I tried as best as I could to calm down as the lift went down to Flight Control. It wasn't easy. I kept remembering Chang Cu, the Kilrathi force advancing steadily, no matter how much of it we stripped away we couldn't stop them. Confederation positions were overrun or obliterated, the dying screams of Confederation pilots became disgustingly familiar to me.  
"Congratulations on the promotion." I said quickly, hoping that conversation would get rid of the memories.  
"Thanks."

There was no mistaking the guilt in Adish's voice. Part of the reason he had been promoted was to even out the number of senior pilots in Adjudicator squadron. Tieschowitz had also been promoted to Major to replace the late Major Reed.

Despite the fact that his experience, kill scores and abilities made Adish more then deserving of his promotion to Captain, being promoted because someone has died and they need replacements has a habit of making pilots feel guilty, apparently, it feels like spitting in the face of the dead.

I was yet to experience anything like that.

The lift came to a sudden jolt which caused the piece of paper the bridge officers were glaring at to float gracefully to the floor. I was offered a moment's distraction in watching them both getting in each other's way trying to catch it in mid air.

And then it was gone, and the tension returned, stronger now, as if angry for its short lived banishment.

**Three Minutes Later**

Trent was late.

Not surprising really, considering the doubtless meeting with Commodore Ammadon, messages from HQ and strategies that had to be formulated, (or strategic withdrawals that had to be planned). There was a lot to do and not nearly enough time to do it in.

The briefing room was overly crowded thanks to the fact that both Death's Shadow and Adjudicator squadrons had been crammed into it. Conversation was sparse. Some people looked ready to shit themselves, others looked disappointed. They'd probably assumed that we'd be pulling out of this system less then a week after we'd arrived.

Adish and Torrent sat on either side of me; both of them were boring into the tactical information terminal with their eyes, trying to will it to reveal the future to them.

When Trent finally arrived, silence fell upon the room in an instant. The air suddenly felt colder.  
"Listen up people," there was an edge of nervousness in Trent's voice, almost unreadable, "Because we don't have time to waste. First of all, I don't know what you may have heard or what assumptions you may have leapt to, but we are not going to abandon this system."

Someone close to me uttered a muffled expletive. I couldn't blame them. Another person cheered, I don't know who, but Trent cast a contemptuous glare in their direction.  
"I know what you're thinking." Trent continued, "Even without the H'varkann in this system we're outnumbered and outgunned. Many of you probably think this is suicide. And it may very well be."

He paused after that and we waited in silence and shock. Just what the hell was HQ thinking?

When Trent spoke again, I felt like someone had dropped a bucket of ice cold water down my neck.  
"We're going to destroy that piece of oversized cat dung, and anything else that gets in our way."

How do you respond to that?

Trent spoke up before anyone could point out flaws in this plan.  
"Many of you have doubtlessly heard about what happened to the Quinson carrier group. We can't destroy one of these things by conventional means, but if history has taught us anything, its that unconventional strategies has led to the greatest Confederation successes."

He had a point there.

Trent tapped a few controls on his podium and the ghastly image of a H'varkann class dreadnought appeared on the screen. For a moment we were looking at a side view image, and then it quickly shifted to show us the bow of the creature.  
"This is the weakest point of the dreadnought. Anything that makes it to the flight deck can avoid enemy flak fire.

The screen changed again, this time to a mission map. In one corner were a series of blue icons, one of which was the Hermes. In the other was a considerably larger collection of red dots, and an outline of the H'varkann.

"The first thing we'll have to do is thin out the enemy's escorts a little. The techs have already rigged up a couple of decoys that should convince the Kilrathi that lightly defended Confed capital ships are heading towards us, when they arrive, you'll take them out."

The screen started to move, red arrows broke away from the main swarm and were quickly intercepted and destroyed by blue ones.  
"After that," Trent continued, "We move on the dreadnought."

With that, the entire collection of blue icons, the Hermes included, advanced towards the now smaller collection of red icons.

"Your job will be to cover the Hermes whilst it moves on the beast. We'll stay directly in line with its bow to avoid flak fire, but as you know that thing'll have more then enough fighters to make our lives difficult."

The screen zoomed in on the Hermes and the H'varkann. From this angle it simply looked like a mesh of blue and red wires.  
"We will launch a total of twelve ship killer missiles down the enemy's throat. According to our date the beasts are more susceptible to damage from the inside, and six of our missiles should snap the thing in half."

The computer started moving again, the Hermes disappeared and a series of missiles descended into the flight deck of the H'varkann, then it tore apart into a cloud of digital debris.

There were some murmurs, some hopeful, most of them were sceptical. That was a nice plan in theory, but there was a lot that could mess it up, and there was no way that the Hermes would be able to escape it this went wrong, and the chances of that happening were a lot higher then the chances of this working.

Still, what was the alternative?

"Before that however," Trent uttered, "We have some busy work to take care of."

The screen changed again to show the green, chequered outline of Brimstone two.  
"We're evacuating non-essential personnel and their families from the base whilst we still can. Three transports will be heading for the Gateway system in the next six hours. The first transport is leaving in twenty minutes. Salamander, I'd like you to oversee the escort."  
"Yes sir." Salamander responded from somewhere in front of me."  
"You can choose your own wingman for this one."

There was a moment's pause.  
"I'll take Fool sir."

I felt marginally pleased. This seemed simple enough, and it was doubtful the Kilrathi would notice us leaving. Also it sounded better then waiting around for the first strike mission.  
"Alright," Trent said, "I want the two of you to leave immediately, two Thunderbolts are waiting on the flight deck."  
"Aye sir." Salamander said as he stood up.  
"Understood sir." I added.

Forcing my way out of the line of seated pilots was troublesome to say the least. Torrent didn't make things any easier by sticking her leg out to trip me up. I managed to correct myself before I hit the floor but it still made getting out of the briefing room troublesome.

I guess it could be argued that this was well deserved considering I made a habit of doing the same to her when the opportunity presented itself, but that's not really important.

**Twelve minute later**

"Brimstone evacuation transport alpha this is Major Carl Mclean from the TCS Hermes, we are standing by to escort you to the jump point."  
"Copy that Major. The final evacuation shuttle is currently on route from the planet. Once its docked with us we'll be ready to move out."  
"Understood." Salamander's face disappeared from the com screen, only to come back a second later.  
"Fool, get in formation on the port side."  
"Got it."

I hit my engines and carefully moved myself into position alongside the transport. It was one of the older, Clydesdale models, bulky and bulbous, and was also bogged down with civilians.

Brimstone 2 wasn't just a military base, since the Confederation's capture of the system and the construction of Oasis station, it had become something of a miniature colony. Since no one had expected this to become a front line area, people had seen nothing wrong with starting families there, or inviting their own families to join them from home. (Although why anyone would want to bring their loved ones to that God forsaken, sulphurous wasteland is something of a mystery to me.)

It was comforting to know that these people would, probably, escape this system with their lives, unlike the rest of us.  
_Pessimistic bastard._ My head chortled at me in response to my grim thoughts for the umpteenth time.

Not much was said as the shuttle slowly climbed out of the atmosphere. Salamander wasn't at his most talkative and I didn't want to try and change that. Unlike most of us, he had the added burden of knowing that the woman he loved was facing death along with him.

Razor had been temporarily transferred to Oasis station to help bolster the base's air support in case the Kilrathi launched any strikes on the base. Of course if the H'varkann got through the Hermes it wouldn't much matter how many fighters we had on the planet.

She would be leaving the first thing tomorrow.

The fact that I would probably be dead before too long hadn't really sunk in yet, I'd forced myself to focus on the task before me, but I couldn't do that forever, the second I returned to base and tried to sleep then the mental images of my upcoming death would doubtlessly plague me and if I was lucky ensure that I only got ten minutes sleep before I found myself in the biggest fight of my life.

Eventually, the shuttle docked with the transport, unloaded its passengers, undocked and headed back towards the planet.  
"Hermes wing, this is the Memories of Amazon" (No doubt named by some nature enthusiast to honour the memory of the late Amazon rainforest. "We are staring our approach to the jump point."  
"Understood," Salamander replied, "Come on Fool, let's get this done."  
"Yes sir."

The transport began its path towards the jump point at what was probably walking speed. This had the makings of a long day.

**Two hours later**

The time passed amazingly quickly.

As it turned out I was wrong, I didn't have to wait until I got back home for the mental images of doom began to invade my head. Alongside a surprisingly vivid dying scream which accompanied a mental image of my fighter exploding, I also envisioned the charred wreck of the Hermes, and the sickeningly triumphant faces of the Kilrathi as Oasis station was reduced to rubble.

I didn't need this. But the part of my brain that saw fit to throw these things at me didn't care too much about that.

Salvation came in the form of the com screen springing to life. It was Salamander.  
"I'm reading new contacts on radar, three Hellcats and one shuttle. Stay sharp kid, you know we may have traitors in this system."  
"Understood."  
"Approaching Hellcat wing, this is Major Carl Mclean of the TCS Hermes, kindly identify yourselves."  
"Major," came the response from a nondescript looking pilot in one of the Hellcats, the flight helmet read 'Csatlos'. "This is Gamma wing from Oasis station. We've just been informed that the ship you're escorting may contain Mandarin terrorists, no doubt you're aware of their recent activities in this system."  
"I'd heard," Salamander responded, his voice confused and somewhat sceptical, "But I thought the perpetrators were yet to be identified."

The pilot's voice re-appeared with the same professional nonchalance.  
"This discovery has only recently been made by the base's investigators. I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it. Nevertheless, intelligence indicates that there's a Mandarin terrorist onboard that transport. The shuttle we're escorting contains a security force tasked with hunting down this individual."  
"Can I get confirmation on these orders?" Salamander replied, his voice marginally suspicious.

For a few seconds the Hellcat pilot remained silent, he appeared to be looking at something on his right hand computer display.  
"I'm afraid not Major, if we wait too long the Mandarin may realise we are onto him. We must be quick."  
"Then can you confirm to me that you are in fact not Mandarins intent on seizing this transport?"

Another silence followed this, the pilot's eyes formed an almost hostile glare. After a moment he sighed in what appeared to be exasperation, then spoke up again, his voice different now, more dramatic.  
"Enough of this charade. Fighters, destroy these infidels. Soldiers, seize that abomination and proceed to the rendezvous coordinates."  
"Fool, break and attack. Memories of Amazon, take evasive action." Salamander said with remarkable composure. I was too shocked to respond for a moment.

A few neutron blasts to my shields pulled my from my trance.  
"Engaging enemy now."  
"Take that shuttle out." Salamander said, his cockpit jostling slightly, suggesting weapons fire on his part, "If they dock the people inside won't stand a chance."  
"On it."

I half expected the whole thing to be more dramatic, two or three of the attackers would try and keep me from the shuttle, I'd be trying to score hits while it moved ever closer to the transport.

Instead all I did was fire off an Imrec missile. The shuttle wasn't nearly manoeuvrable enough to evade it and the pilot's piloting was nothing special. The shuttle ripped apart after the missile impacted on its hull, taking a vast number of…

_Retros?_

It didn't seem possible, they couldn't be in Vega and they couldn't get hold of modern day Confederation fighters; but I didn't have time to worry about that.  
"Contemptible sinner." One of the hostiles spat at me, "You shall pay for spilling the blood of our righteous warriors."  
"How so?" I shot back, "Are you going to start singing?"

With my reputation for witty insults, I really should have been able to think up something better then that. I was better at ridiculing Kilrathi.

I swerved to the left just as a string of ion bursts appeared where my ship had been.  
"You couldn't hit a cow on the ass with a shovel." I chortled amiably over the com. I then killed my engines and watched as the woefully inexperienced pilot passed overhead, by the time he figured out what had happened he already had gunfire ripping away his rear shields and tearing his engines apart.  
"Fool," He shouted, "You cannot hope to defeat a warrior favoured by G…"

It seems he was wrong.  
"That's one of the fighters down," I said, then added hastily, "I got the shuttle too."  
"This one's just about done." Salamander said. By the looks of things, the two pilots he was facing were a hell of a lot better then their idiot friend who'd just gone up in flames.

I hit my afterburners and sped towards the ship on Salamander's six. On the way, I noticed the Hellcat he was firing on explode.

Another face appeared on the com screen, it was the one who had tried to fool us earlier.  
"You may have saved our contemptible lives for now, but there will come a time when the technological abominations shall be wiped clean of this galaxy, as well as all of their soulless slaves."  
"He's not getting away that easily, Fool, he's heading past you, shoot him down."

As soon as I heard the missile lock confirmation I fired. Before waiting to see if the missile would even find its target I opened fire with cannons.

The Retro's ventral shield vanished, making the missile's task easier. The ship vomited fire through the subsequent hull breach and spun wildly for a few seconds before it detonated.

Yet another silence followed as me and Salamander both caught our breath and tried to make sense of exactly what had happened.  
"This is the Memories of Amazon," The jittery voice of the com officer said suddenly, "What the hell was that about?"  
"Memories of Amazon, resume your path towards the jump hole and maintain radio silence, there may be more of them out there."

After a moment's more reflection, I moved myself back into formation. I soon found myself feeling very tired.

We didn't need this.

**To be continued**


	12. Final Hour

**I'm sorry it's taken me so very, very long to update. This time i have excuses in the form of heading off to university and well, to be hounest the biggest problem was forgetfulness, again. The good news is that there's a grang total of 8 chapters in this update. The next one should be out soon.**

**Thanks again to all readers.**

**Chapter 12: Final hour**

**Salamander's perspective**

How is it that a bed barely that's as wide as I am can feel empty?

Well, I guess I know how. It wasn't just that it felt empty either, it felt stiff and itchy; it seemed to be willing to feel like anything which would make my getting to sleep that much harder.

I learned long ago that if I can't get to sleep, I shouldn't try to force it, which typically only leads to energy being wasted in frustration and shuffling. Whenever I get stuck with sleepless nights, I often laid back, gazed at the ghastly ceiling of my cabin and listened to the slow, steady breathing of Razor who would be sprawled across my chest.

Unfortunately, that wasn't an option today. She was attending a last minute briefing regarding potential strategies and enemy threat assessments from Trent or at least something like that. She'd be heading down to the planet shortly afterwards. A great fucking time he picked for it. God knows I needed her tonight. God knows we needed each other that night.

Distantly, my mind wandered back to a short lived shore leave in Gateway, where I wasted one too many hours watching the film version of the TCS _Tarawa's_ mission to Kilrah.

After seeing this monstrosity, I found it a little hard to believe that it was based on true events. The mission it seemed was a sub plot. Half the film involved two actors, I forget the names, and I won't insult the real people they portrayed by writing their names in the same paragraph, feasting off of each other.

I do have a point to make with this, trust me.

One scene in particular was of a reasonably emotional, 'night before the dawn' scene which had an elderly woman in the row behind me wailing into her handkerchief. Basically you saw the teary last moments of the couple, each realising that they'd probably be dead and that their short time together was rapidly coming to a close. (Which of course was promptly followed by the two making the most of their remaining time in the time honoured tradition of cinema.)

At the time I counted this as just another perversion of the truth brought about by blinkered film companies. Another in a large collection of turds dropped by the media that concealed the truth about the war.

Not long after that, me and Razor hooked up, shortly before the Kilrathi started making their presence felt in the Vega sector. On the night before a large strike on an enemy carrier group, (including a (at the time) new _Bhantkara_ class fleet carrier,) we found ourselves in a similar situation to the one I viewed with contempt on a cinema screen. None of us were sure whether the mission would be a success or not, the only thing we were certain of was that a great many of us would die.

I was certain that one of us wouldn't survive. It seemed fitting for a cruel and merciless universe that allowed the Kilrathi to exist and commit the atrocities they rejoiced in.

We spent the night before the battle together, each quietly cursing at the generally shitty state of the universe and trying to hold back tears for the other's impending demise. (And we did a few other things which I'm sure you can figure out for yourselves.)

In retrospect, what I experienced wasn't too different from what I saw on screen, and probably not too different from what the two pilots on the _Tarawa, _and God only knows how many others have gone through.

Then, as a strange twist of fate, we both survived. The carrier group, although not destroyed took enough dents to keep them out of the game for a while, not that it did much good seeing as the Kilrathi just sent another two in its place.

In war, you soon come to realise that any day could be your last. You get used to that, and slowly but steadily, the influence it has on your sleeping patterns begins to seep away.

With some missions though, its not a matter of 'could', it's a matter of 'will'. With some missions, you _know _you're going to die. All the small chances of survival, assurances of your commanding officer and inspired tactics you've learned before don't do a thing to ease your peace of mind. All you can feel is an unwavering certainty that your life is coming to an end, as well as the regret that comes with it. Regret that your loved ones will die too, or that you'll never see them again. Regret that you joined the sodding military in the first place. Regret that you never used a witty comeback that occurred to you in high school half an hour after it was too late.

Its some ways it's a lot harder when you go through this with someone else, in more ways though its easier, or at least shorter. You're so desperate to cling to what time you have left that time flies away at an unfair speed. Alone, it trudges along like a Centaurian mud pig with two broken legs.

For the umpteenth time, I rolled onto my chest and tried to get comfortable on the uncomfortable mattress. Sleeping on the floor was beginning to seem strangely appealing, simply because it didn't look itchy.

I pushed the idea aside, deciding that fighting the Kilrathi with numerous muscle cramps wouldn't help my slim chances of survival.

I twisted back onto my back. Grasping the pillow in both hands, I hurled it as hard as I could against the far wall. It struck with wall silently and vanished behind the end of the bed. I felt marginally better for it.

_People can't fly Carl. I'd have thought you'd know that already._

I'm not sure why these wise words from Mrs. Portman, one of the teachers from my old high school should have found its way into my head. Nevertheless, I took the opportunity to indulge in the memory. A welcome diversion, despite the fact that at the time it was a humiliating experience.

When I was six, I found myself watching a centuries old film on some historical nostalgia channel or something. I'm not sure nostalgia's the right word, anyway, basically the film involved some strange man with some ridiculous costume flying and performing all manner of supernatural spectacles. My six year old self saw this, felt a stab of envy and thought, _Hey, me too!_

The next day I climbed to the top of the primary school's climbing frame, extended one of my arms in some presumably heroic stance and promptly buggered over head first into the mud.

The children around me all laughed their heads off and I was quick to receive a scolding from Mrs. Portman, who just happened to be the closest teacher at the time. I think she was most annoyed at the fact I'd stained my uniform more then anything. The fact that I'd given myself a nose bleed as a result didn't seem to bother her.

Two days later, another kid called Harvey Cromwell was caught trying to dig for gold in the school's garden. Fifteen Chrysanthemums died in this attack, another four were wounded. This gave the children something else to focus on and the jibes and insults after my would-be flight came to an end.

I guess it could be argued that people can fly, with the aid of such things as Thunderbolts, Arrows and the antique propeller driven contraptions you see at air shows.

"I guess I showed her." I said to myself before a second or two's snickering. It wasn't that funny, but my current state of mind wasn't as stable as it should be and a lot of things were starting to seem funny.

**Forty two minutes later**

Minutes ticked away and I lay back, recalling what sunlight felt like, trying to reassure myself that _H'varkann _class dreadnoughts _weren't really that big._

When the door to my cabin hissed open it took me a second to realise what was happening. For an instant I thought it was just the sound of one of the pipes overhead carrying all manners of waste to the recycling sections.

Then realisation set in, with shock and a sudden surge of energy coursing through my veins I shot upwards into a seating position to see Razor standing in the doorframe.

For a minute I was torn between sudden joy and surprise, I hadn't expected to see her at all.

Then as she moved through the door and towards the bed, her hands already undoing the buttons on her uniform, I abruptly stopped caring about _why _she was here.

**Two minutes later**

My body jerked violently and it took me a few seconds to realise where I was. I looked around, I was still in my cabin, it was dark, cold, silent, and empty.

As realisation set in, I forced my head back into the mattress and sighed heavily.

_It was a fucking dream._

I almost laughed. It seemed I had managed to fall asleep after all, for all of four minutes, more or less.

This new discovery seemed to open the door for everything I'd been trying to shut out tonight. The pain about losing Razor, who I know was still very much alive and still on the same ship as me. Not that I expected to see her again, to me, she was lost. On top of this there were also the others, Scar, Adish, Fool, Torrent, and a whole host of other men and women onboard this ship and our surviving escorts who I imagined would soon have their atoms scattered all over the system.

Finally there was the growing, nagging feeling in my gut about the declining state of the war. But for this at least I felt as if I wouldn't have to worry about it for long.

In a sudden fit of anger I pushed myself out of bed and launched my fist against the nearest wall. A loud 'clang' and four aching fingers were the result of this. I didn't really feel any better for it.

A few seconds later a second, louder 'clang' sounded. Presumably I'd just woken someone up, either that or they wished to start some sort of bizarre dialogue.

I picked the scattered pieces of my uniform up from under my bunk. (Razor had drummed this habit on me after she'd stepped on a pair of used underwear that had been left on the deck after a night spent together. She'd also thumped me in the ribs for it.)

I wasn't going to stay here, I figured a brisk walk or a very early breakfast might distract me. Besides, if I stayed here I was likely to think too hard about the shitty state of everything, get angry and break something. Probably my fingers.

"Attention!" Boomed the ship's internal com system at a volume loud enough to wake sleeping pilots. "All Death Shadow, Adjudicator and Swift Blade pilots are to report to the briefing room immediately."

That was quicker then I expected.

**To be continued.**


	13. Beheading a Hydra

**Chapter 13: Beheading a Hydra**

**Scar's perspective**

"_Leaving safety to the sane, we go to squash more feline brain..."_

The woefully off key singing ringed out over the radio of all fifteen of our ships for the third time. The song, 'Ballard of idiots', had first come to the _Hermes_ after one of the Death's Shadow pilots heard it sung by a group of drunken marines whilst on shore leave on _Kyoto _depot. Now it was a favourite among pilots hoping to pass away the time or halt their thought processes whilst in flight.

A lot of us were singing, the rest of us, myself included remained silent, preferring to retain our dignity for what little it was worth or simply just lost in our own feelings of impending doom.

The ironic thing is, this wasn't even the hard part. All we had to do was take out one Fralthi 2 class cruiser which had, kind of surprisingly, taken the bait we'd left in the form of a drone which was placed at a comfortable distance from the H'varkann, which at this time was making its way towards Brimstone 2.

The drone was generating a sufficiently large electromagnetic signature which from a distance would make it look very much like a _Savannah _class destroyer. By the time the Kilrathi realised they'd been duped, they would have us to contend with. Hardly an encouraging thought.

I read somewhere that the Fralthi 2's were a pound for pound match with our own _Tallahassee _cruisers. Considering the colossal size and daunting appearance of these Kilrathi cruisers you soon arrive at the conclusion that this is bullshit. Then again, that's the way with a lot of Kilrathi vessels. They always build bigger then we do, and they always build ships that look like they could happily slice through ours just by ramming them with their claw like bows. You can read as many status reports proclaiming evenly matched designs or even terran design superiority, but that's not what you're focusing on when you see a blade like Kilrathi fighter charging towards you.

This marked my sixth time as turret fodder during an offensive raid, and for the sixth time I was certain I was going to die. It comes with being the pilot of a light fighter and it's a feeling I've learned to ignore. Well, it's a feeling I've learned I _should _ignore; actually doing so is next to impossible.

Mine and the other Arrows' jobs were to fly in, smash a few turrets, and open a gap in the flak fire for the Longbows to send torpedoes through. Alongside that we also had the now somewhat harder job, thanks to Fire Wings depleted numbers, of providing fighter cover.

There'd probably be Dralthi escorts, maybe Vaktoths.

In two other distant sections of the Brimstone system, other wings were striking other targets which we could only hope had, surprisingly, also been duped by the decoys. It was entirely possible that the Cats knew what was coming and had bolstered their fighter defences to prepare for our coming.

Or maybe they were just blinded by lust for blood, instantly pouncing upon anything with a confederation signature. Either was possible, and with all the trickery I'd seen the Kilrathi employ during my career, the later option seemed doubtful at best.

Still, you never know.

The other targets were a second Fralthi cruiser and a _Bhantkara_ class carrier. God knows why the beasts felt the need for extra deck space when they had a _H'varkann_. Nevertheless, assuming I went well, a dead Kilrathi carrier was better then a live one.I spat out something that, given suitable encouragement, might have developed into a scornful laugh.

The _H'varkann_, the Kilrathi battering ram and black cloud that had been hanging over all our heads ever since it arrived. When Colonel Trent had given his moving mission briefing, my fears, and I assume those of many others, changed from fear of not being able to pull out in time to fear of dying alongside the entire carrier group on some fool's charge into the demon's jaws.

Fine choices aren't they? Retreat and die at some later date, probably by the same Kilrathi ship we'd be running from or stay and die a pointless death swatting feebly at some impregnable flying fortress.

Or, destroy it and become heroes.

Think of it, the _Hermes_ would rise among such renowned names as _Tarawa, Tiger's Claw, Concordia, _the _Gwenhyver, _ok bad example, but you get my point. If we took this beast out, we'd all become legends, tales of our deeds would be told in academy lecture halls to legions of bored cadets who probably would have heard the story three times over already.

As much as I tired, I couldn't make the thought especially encouraging, for every train of thought that trailed off from the main idea, I found myself making scathing, sarcastic comments about it. Maybe I was a puritan at heart, shying away from earthly comforts such as ego fantasies.

Another thing which made the thought process increasingly unappealing was the fact that the _Tarawa_, the _Tiger's_ _Claw_, the _Concordia_ and yes, even the _Gwenhyver_, (again it's a bad example but never mind,) had all been destroyed or beaten beyond recognition, not a particularly encouraging trend. Also, acclaim and admiration wouldn't change anything, except maybe that I'd throw up a little more then usual. We'd still be in the war, and we'd still eventually die. _Probably._

"Be silent!" The voice of Lieutenant Colonel Kenji Matsumoto cut through the would be 'Beta wing choir' like a knife, and a deathly silence ensued.

"I'm reading Kilrathi contacts, two of them, Darkets, looks like a patrol. Arrows, engage and destroy."

I accelerated to full throttle before activating my afterburners, above me, I noticed the pointed bow of another arrow, to my port side I saw another. There were four of us in total, the fourth presumably rested somewhere behind me. Looks like I had point, by all of four metres.

I readied an Image recognition missile and locked onto the closest Darket. We had to end this quickly, if the Kilrathi cruiser got word of our coming things could become a lot more difficult for us.

They were closing quickly, I had the distinct impression that we were dealing with rookies eager for blood and not caring too much about greater numbers. I knew a few terran pilots who were like that in their early days. Not many of them were still alive. I wondered briefly, whether they'd picked up the rest of the squadron behind us.

My question was soon answered when one of them performed a hasty 180 degree turn. Maybe I hadn't given them enough credit.

"Missile away." Shouted the man on my left, "Looking good, come on…"

A few moments later, I was treated to the sight of an exploding Darket twenty kilometres away from me.

"I've got the other one," I said hastily, not wanting to waste any more fuel then was necessary, they'd need it when we got to the cruiser, "Skull, follow me in. If something goes wrong, finish him."

"Yes sir."

Her voice was unwavering. This was as surprising as it was encouraging. The last time I flew with her, Skull was a shrieking wreck who escaped death by the skin of her teeth. Surviving battles with the Kilrathi usually help to steady nerves and break rookies out of their training wheels.

Ejecting on the other hand typically has the opposite effect. Waiting in the coldness of space with death creeping ever closer as your oxygen supply deteriorates, then of course there's no guarantee you'll be picked up by a friendly SAR shuttle, assuming you got picked up at all. It's a unnerving experience to say the least, I'd been through it twice myself and hadn't stopped shaking for a long while both times.

Her encounter with the vacuum fields of the Brimstone system after I'd ordered her to eject seemed to have strengthened her, maybe it had made the fact that worrying about death would only kill you quicker sink in, maybe she was angry about it. Either way, she seemed the better off for it.

The Darket made an abrupt U-turn and the next thing I knew my 'lock' light was illuminated, accompanied by the low pitched whine of the alarm.

I tilted my ship upwards slightly and dropped a decoy. The alarm's whine came to an abrupt halt, only to start up again two seconds later.

It took me another two decoys and a lot of afterburning to evade this missile. By the time it exploded, Skull was already engaging the Darket. She'd moved in close, apparently not wanting to waste any missiles on a measly light fighter.

Fair enough under normal circumstances, however time was a luxury we didn't have. The _Hermes_ was already on route to intercept the _H'varkann, _we had to get this mission finished ASAP, then get home, refuel, rearm, repent our sins and get back into space.

I fired off a heat seeker as soon as I was in range of the Darket, which was already taking hits on its ventral shields made a hasty charge downwards, maybe hoping to position Skull between the missile and itself, maybe not.

The one decoy it dropped was contemptuously ignored and the missile soon buried itself in the engines of the Kilrathi fighter, sending it into an uncontrollable spin.

Debris and flames were left in the wake of the fighter as it tore itself apart. After a second or two a Kilrathi face appeared on my com screen, I half expected to hear a pained curse or two from the dying pilot as I'd heard more times then I can remember.

Instead he uttered a single word, I'm not quite sure what it is and I have no idea what it means, it was something like _Hathar_, or _Hassa_. I don't know what it means. He sounded quite sad as he said it.

I didn't dwell on the thought; I just got back into formation. There was work to be done.

**Forty five minutes later**

The trouble with these things is that it takes more then one torpedo to destroy them. Adish tells me it normally takes 3 or 4, if you're lucky. That was one reason we couldn't simply target the engines where there was minimal flak cover. These weren't like the Cap ships of old with massive exhaust ports just begging to have a warhead or two sent up them. The engines of today were designed to counter this threat; visually they simply resembled glowing lights on the back of ships, and it was considerably harder to destroy ships just by targeting them. We could probably disable the cruiser by targeting its engines, but that wasn't why we were here. Frankly, the command staff of the Hermes weren't as optimistic as the pilots. They wanted as much damage done to the Kilrathi as possible before the battle took place. Every little helps I guess.

Having said that, the same isn't true of modern day fighters. The exhaust ports were what I was aiming for on the Dralthi in front of me. The Dralthi's pilot was, by the looks of things, targeting the same area on a Hellcat.

I'd already wasted one heat seeker in a failed shot on the Kilrathi ship, I didn't want to spend a second one on the same fighter if I could avoid it. There were more fighters here then we'd expected. They must have gotten extra escorts from the H'varkann before they left to investigate the '_Savannah'_.

When I noticed a hit on the Dralthi's target that tore scorched armour from the wings I realised I had no choice, if I didn't launch another missile soon then the Hellcat may very well die before him.

I set loose an Imrec missile which fared better then its predecessor. There was a large explosion which was more the engines detonating then the missile. The Dralthi was split in two.

The targeting computer instantly locked onto the closest enemy fighter, a Paktahn. By the looks of things somebody else had already taken a few pot shots at this thing. Its port and forward shields were gone and the forward hull showed signs of damage.

I found I had to switch targets however after my rear shields started taking hits.

In my rear view display I noticed a second Dralthi was now taking pot shots at me. Fortunately most of his shots were flying gracefully overhead, but I didn't expect that to last.

I strafed to the left momentarily and then came to a dead stop, the Kilrathi also stopped, no doubt he'd seen this before. The end result was that he still had me in his sights and it was all I could do to power up my engines and try and evade his fire. You can't afford to take a great many hits in an Arrow, playing chicken with anything stronger then a Darket was something reserved only for aces and idiots.

"Die you worthless scum!" Screamed the pilot behind me. His voice was filled with raw, seemingly unfocused rage, although why he should be so angry was somewhat confusing, his side wasn't too badly beaten in this battle, (neither was ours), I hadn't given him too much grief and I hadn't evaded him long enough to get all too frustrated, even by Kilrathi standards.

This might help me.

"Patience fluffy," I uttered amicably over the com at the furry demon that was trying to kill me, "Patience, this job requires patience and a cool head. If you're that quick to anger then try picturing happy things like toy mice and haddock."

His response was a maniacal hiss. I don't think he was even paying attention to me, it was probably just the fact that I was talking to him that had pissed him off.

Another round of Kilrathi gunfire passed into and then over my rear shields. This wasn't too much to worry about at the moment, this guy was a good pilot I'll give him that, but his marksmanship was appalling.

Ahead of me, a Darket was busy trying to evade the rear turret of thunderbolt which at the same time was ripping apart a second Darket with its forward guns. An idea, one which I was very pessimistic about, sprung to mind. It seemed to be the only choice I had, I couldn't get behind this guy, and given enough time he'd probably finish me off.

I hit my afterburners and charged directly at the first Darket, the Dralthi followed me, as I was hoping. It was a little surprising that he hadn't fired a missile off, maybe it was a matter of pride, missiles made life easy, maybe he felt he had to kill me with cannons to make the kill a worthy demonstration of skill.

Maybe he felt I wasn't an important enough target.

Either way, this was a good thing.

The words 'It's engaged' and a green crosshair appeared on my HUD, I ignored them. I continued to close the distance between me and the Darket. It didn't look like he'd noticed me.

Less the a kilometre from him, I cut my engines and swung my ship around his, stopping in time to place his ship, more or less, between me and the Dralthi. I unloaded a number of shots onto the Darket's shields as I did so. Needless to say he noticed me then.

He accelerated slightly, I managed, barely, to keep him between me and the Dralthi with the help of a few crude Shelton's slides.

Fortunately, the Dralthi's pilot didn't seem to want to fire on his one of his own. (I doubt he would have hit him anyway.) He veered upwards and sped away, probably trying to line up for another run at me.

A few well timed mass driver shots smashed through the now weakened shields of the Darket I'd been shooting at. The pilot wisely ejected as his ship began to break apart around him.

I hit my afterburners and sped towards the Dralthi. Selecting a second Imrec missile from my ever diminishing supply, I lined the target up in the centre of my view screen and waited for the tone to sound.

I got in closer then is advised before firing, I didn't want to give him the chance to evade the missile. Like his comrade he didn't seem to know I was behind him.

With 3 kilometres between us, I released the missile. Just as he came to a complete stop.

Oh fuck!

I pulled up, hard. Avoiding a serious collision by the skin of my teeth. My shields collided with his, but the impact was too short lasting to cause any worthwhile damage.

This was something you had to watch out for with the Cats, as often as not they'd stop dead in front of you and let you slam into them. It was a glorious death after all, and they took a hairless one with them.

This one had taken no one with him, and he'd also taken a missile up the arse.

The hissing, snarling beast appeared on my com screen once again. Flames were now engulfing his face. Looks like I'd done more damage then I'd expected. After a pained snarl he said,

"I will not die before you, hairless…"

That was as far as he got.

"We're beginning to thin out their fighter cover." Snapped Colonel Matsumoto suddenly. His voice always sounded angry. He reminded me of my old High school history teacher, there was a man who would gut you as soon as look at you.

"Arrows," he continued, "And Hellcats, head for the port side of the cruiser and destroy as many turrets in that section as you can. We'll provide you with cover."

One Arrow pilot died before we even got into firing range of the cruiser, one of the two Hellcat pilots was also forced to eject. I never did find out what happened to her.

I strafed, veered, dived, climbed and did all manner of tricks to try and avoid the bright yellow and red streaks hurtling towards me. Maybe I should have come in from behind, but there were at least two Vaktoths lurking there, it really wasn't much safer.

I picked a turret, a small looking laser turret on the underside of the hull which would doubtlessly prove difficult to hit. When my onboard computer informed me I was close enough, I steadied my craft into an unwavering approach and fired.

When the Kilrathi gunners started landing hits on my forward shields I pulled away. I wasn't that surprised when I found that the turret appeared unscathed, I hadn't been able to fire for very long and the aiming had been rushed.

I retreated until my shields were back up to two bars on the display before turning back around and lining my ship up for another run.

I was able to fire for longer this time, a lot of the turrets were focusing on the second Hellcat. After what felt like a very long while, a small, almost invisible explosion told me that I had put one hostile gun turret out of commission.

"One down," I shouted, "On the port wing, ventral side." It wasn't really a 'wing' in the traditional sense but I wasn't sure what to call it.

"Another down." Skull said shortly afterwards, making no attempt to hide the jubilation in her voice, "Dorsal side, port wing."

"Crap! I'm getting smashed up pretty bad here, I have to pull back."

"I tried to figure out who that voice belonged to. It was difficult to place faces on the com screen to faces on the radar in the heat of battle however.

As it turned out, it belonged to the Hellcat pilot. I was about to offer cover fire for his retreat when his face found itself on the com screen once again.

"Shit, I've got a fighter on my tail. I need help here!"

"Stay calm pilot, Findley and myself are on our way, try and…"

In the top left corner of my line of vision I saw the Hellcat erupt into a fiery debris cloud. I'm guessing Kenji saw it too. The Vaktoth that had destroyed it instantly came under fire from two Thunderbolts. After a sudden flash of shock and anger, I swung my ship around, and picked out another turret.

I'd wanted to blast the Vaktoth apart, we all did. That wouldn't help anyone though. We had to take this cruiser down, otherwise everyone who'd died would have died for nothing.

It occurred to me briefly that I didn't know any of their names.

This latest run started off promisingly, The turret was directly in line with my targeting crosshair and there wasn't too much flak fire. But I got too confident. I flew straight for far too long, as a result some patient Kilrathi manning an antimatter turret put an expert shot tearing effortlessly through my forward shields and armour, and sending circuitry and internal wiring drifting out into space.

My ship broke out into a spin that it took me a long while to pull myself out of. Ironically that spin saved my life. Without it the gunner would have undoubtedly finished me off with the follow up shots. As it was, h didn't see to be able to land a hit on me.

I sped away from the cruiser and called up the damage control display. My guns were history, and my communications had suffered over 60 damage.

"I've suffered severe damage," I told Kenji with a calmness in my voice that I did not feel, "My cannons are gone."

Kenji uttered a quiet curse in Japanese before speaking to the rest of the wing.

"We have no time left. Arrows, provide fighter cover. Thunderbolts; begin bombing run, focus your fire on the port side."

I had four missiles left. I figured I might as well put them to use.

There were seven remaining hostile fighters, one Darket, two Dralthi and four Vaktoths. Though part of me wanted to take out the easier targets, I knew it was the Vaktoths I had to focus my fire on.

A deeply unpleasant noise which came from somewhere behind me as soon as I activated my afterburners encouraged me to slow to cruise speed in order to get a missile ok. My damage control system wasn't registering any problems with the afterburners, but I didn't want to take any chances with a tank still half full of highly combustible fuel. I wasn't too far out of missile range anyway.

With the sounding of the lock light, I fired one heat seeker and one Imrec at the closest Vaktoth. The pilot released decoys but seemed to be worrying more about the Thunderbolts then about his own safety. That's admirable I suppose.

Both of the missiles hit their target, however they didn't seem to cause any problems for the pilot, save for some light engine damage.

I was about to fire a second Imrec when I noticed that his wingman was now flying towards me.

This was bad enough in a fully operational ship.

I launched the Imrec at the incoming Vaktoth and sped away in the opposite direction, risking the hiss that now accompanied the afterburners.

My 'lock' light and alarm sprang into life. I pulled to the right and jettisoned two decoys, none of which seemed to have any effect. My last three fared better, the alarm died abruptly, but there was nothing to stop him trying again, and with no decoys things just became a lot harder.

I pulled my ship around to face the oncoming hostile, figuring it'd be safer if I could get behind him.

On my way in I noticed that his starboard wing had taken damage. He was also turning away. It looked like something else had taken his attention. And whatever it was soon took his life.

The wing broke off and the fighter degenerated into a spin. My initial reaction was to after burn closer and unload as many gunshots into it as possible, and then I remembered I had no guns.

Fortunately it didn't much matter, the rest of the Vaktoth went up a few seconds later.

Not long afterwards, skull's face appeared on the com screen. To say she looked pleased would be an understatement.

"Now we've even." Her face disappeared from the screen, only to reappear two seconds later, "Sir." She added more seriously.

I almost laughed. Kenji's face soon caught my attention however.

"Torpedoes away, all ships retreat to a safe distance."

I found the cruiser on the radar and then moved away in the opposite direction. I wasn't too hopeful that these torpedoes make it; we hadn't taken out nearly enough turrets.

"Shit!" Screamed one of the thunderbolt pilots, "They've taken out one of the torpedoes."

That didn't reassure me much.

For a while the battle seemed to stop. A few of the Kilrathi were trying to shoot down or collide with the torpedoes, others were sitting and waiting. As were we.

When all three of the remaining yellow dots on my radar vanished, I couldn't tell whether they'd hit the target or whether they'd been destroyed. For a while nothing seemed to happen.

I switched through the targets on the display, looking to see if the cruiser had been hit when I saw a massive explosion shatter the port wing. A second erupted a few seconds later on the bow.

The third explosion, I could only assume came from the reactor, reduced the _Fralthi_ to a lifeless hulk of charred metal.

We cheered momentarily; using an open channel to make sure the surviving Kilrathi heard us. I think even Kenji joined in.

"Remain vigilant. We still have Kilrathi to deal with here. Captain Petrova (me), fall back to the _Hermes,_ Lieutenant Black, go with him."

"Sir I can still…"

_Oh dear._

"You heard my orders!" Shouted Kenji with increased ferocity in his voice. The man had no tolerance for disobedience. I'd discovered this myself on one occasion. "Your ship has taken damage and we do not require your presence. Withdraw!"

"Yes sir."

I could understand how she felt, but at the time I was just happy to be away from the battle. I had full confidence in my comrades and I didn't expect to stay alive if I stayed here.

**Five hours later**

Colonel Kenji and the others met up with us on the way back. Skull's engines had taken damage and we'd been crawling back at a Longbow's speed.

With the _Fralthi_ dead, my thoughts had reverted to the assorted scenarios they'd been running through involving the upcoming battle with the _H'varkann_. They were less daunting now. What with the actual battle being only a handful of hours away.

Jake Coben's face appeared on the com screen when we arrived back at the _Hermes_.

"Good work everyone," He looked like he'd just been told he was due to be executed in the morning, "You did great work out there, but I'm afraid I've got some bad news."

He paused and sighed heavily, I had a pretty good idea what was coming and I instantly started hoping that I was wrong.

"Alpha wing was also successful, however Gamma wing is long overdue, and according to our scans their target is still intact. At this point we're assuming that there are no survivors."

For a few seconds I just stared at Coben's face, my mind abruptly turned to ash. After his words finally sunk in it felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach by a horse.

Torrent was part of that wing.

**To be continued.**


	14. Lion's den

**Be forwarned, this chapter is especially unpleasant.**

**Chapter 14: Lion's Den**

**Torrent's perspective**

In retrospect, maybe I should have died.

I must have said that to myself a hundred times in that room. It some miniscule segment of humour that reassured an even smaller part f my brain that this wasn't really happening.

You know, they actually told us to die in the academy. I could still hear the words of Captain Haley Bauer, speaking. _Don't jump if you're anywhere near a Kilrathi cap ship. Trust me on that, the cats won't think twice about using you for target practice. If you're lucky. The Kilrathi have no code of conduct for the treatment of prisoners, to them we're a lesser species, a waste of skin. Prisoners are just a convenient source of labour, a scratching post or a main course. Mark my words, you're better off dead then in the Cat's claws._

Captain Bauer wasn't a pilot. All she knew was what she'd read in Intel reports. In short,she didn't know a fucking thing. She didn't know how it felt when yours was one of three remaining ships out of an original wing of 17. She didn't know what it felt like to have four enemy fighters firing at you at once. She didn't know how it felt to be so close to death that the only thing you could think of was how to survive.

And I very much doubt she knew what a 'light spear' felt like.

My legs felt weak with the three searing stab wounds they'd endured. Every time I failed to be forthcoming with an answer, the interrogator stabbed me. It felt, well, amazingly enough it felt like getting stabbed with a boiling hot spear.

So far he'd asked me three questions.

For a while after he'd retracted the spear, he just stared at me. I imagine there was a look of sick pleasure on his face. I didn't much want to find out, besides, lifting my head took more effort then I was willing to give.

So instead I watched as blood trickled slowly from the torn flesh in my legs, staining my flight suit and running down onto my boots. Uttering whatever nonsense my terrified mind could come up with.

There wasn't too much blood; the heat seemed to weld shut the wounds, at least slightly. I'm no doctor; I'm not sure what was happening. I just knew that there wasn't as much blood as I'd expect.

When he used the spear on me the first time; well, it was worse the first time. I'll say that much. Each time he used it, I found it more bearable to look at.

I don't especially want to be telling you any of this. I heard it helps, maybe it will.

"I will ask you again human," Roared a voice from above me, "Why does your carrier group approach the _Vorghath?_ Even you must know you have no hope in a battle. What cowardly trick have they planned?"

For as long as I felt was safe I ignored him. When I finally opened my mouth, the first things to leave it were pained coughs. Breathing was hard enough in that fucking room. The hot, clammy air seemed to lodge itself at the back of my throat rather then go into my lungs. It took a lot of energy to breathe, and I wasn't sure it was worth trying.

I instantly switched my focus to the Kilrathi's question. I wasn't ready to indulge that other train of thought yet.

"Listen, I'm just a first lieutenant, they don't tell us anything." I stopped, took in a few more difficult lungfulls of clammy air and dreamt up a few more lines of deception, "I go where I'm told and I shoot at what I'm told. I don't have enough seniority to be let in on the grand plans."

My eyes sprang to the spear, all that mattered in that moment was whether he was going to use it.

Again, for a long while, or what seemed like a long while nothing happened. I'm guessing the furball was trying to decide if I was telling the truth of not. Maybe I was more convincing then I thought.

Maybe it wasn't too implausible, from what I understood, the Kilrathi didn't place a great deal of importance on mere minions. They were just tools, tools that could be replaced if need be. Their earlier suicide attack on the _Hermes_ proved…

_Don't think of the Hermes._

I quickly changed my train of thought before anything I couldn't let myself see sprung up. I wasn't quick enough. Unbidden, an image of Fool's spontaneous jig on a table in the rec room several months ago when a bagpipe solo was playing quietly in the background sprang to mind.

As if on cue, tears emerged behind my eyelids. I blinked heavily, forcing them to stay where they were. I wouldn't give this furry shit ball the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

Fool was gone, The _Hermes_ was gone, everything I remembered, everything I had done belonged to a woman who had died a few hours earlier when a Kilrathi tractor beam impacted with her ejection seat. I was dead, and all I needed was to wait this out and then, one way or another, I would make it official. I had no intention of becoming a slave, to do so would be a betrayal of the Confederation and a life worse then death. I don't expect it would take too much to get one of the guards at a POW camp to kill me. From the way Cobra made it sound when she was still onboard the… Anyway, they kill POWs simply to relieve boredom.

I couldn't do anything now. My legs were two dead weights, my arms were chained to the ceiling and the thing in front of me seemed in no great hurry to kill me.

I switched my attention back to the spear; it was still sitting motionless in the Cat's hand. Glowing dully to indicate it was activated. I stared at it for a few more seconds before he spoke again.

"Do they tell you terran?" It was hard to make out anything this guy was saying, his words were virtually indistinguishable from growls, "That your kind is losing this war? On all sides we see nothing but scarred apes running from our glorious hunters."

I said nothing.

"Are you typical of terrans ape? Are all the pilots of your species pitiful cowards who would sooner leap from a doomed fighter then accept your death with honour, as a warrior should? I seem to always be called to interrogate some…"

It was about at this point when I realised that silence was a form of subservience, as much as I didn't want a fourth stab wound, and as much as tempting it was to push myself as far into my mind as I could and shut out the world around me, a stronger part of me screamed, _Keep fighting, you're a warrior, no matter what this piece of shit says, prove that, now._

I drew a few ragged breaths and lifted my head slightly. I still couldn't meet his eyes, but that was mainly because they were so high up. It was painful enough just keeping my head upright.

"Do you want to know what I've seen out there?" I croaked.

He remained silent. The spear still didn't move.

"You can talk all you want about your glorious hunters, but I've seen no shortage of your kind ejecting when things get too hot. I've seen them retreat too, resort to the same cowardly strikes you curse at us for. You're nothing but a bunch of honourless hypocrites, and you know? When it comes to combat, out there in space, you're just like us."

A low growl came from above, and the spear twitched in the Cat's hand. He didn't use it though, and I wasn't finished. Anger was fuelling my vocal cords.

"Your fucking Empire is a disease." I was starting to sound more coherent now, "You strike out at whatever you see to fulfil your collective bloodthirsty wet dream. Tell me, what perverted view of honour justifies genocide, murdering civilians, this?"

If Z'ratmak were in this position, God forbid, he'd probably say the exact same thing. He'd often tell me and anyone who'd listen about how he was one of the few 'true Kilrathi' left. He was one who still upheld the old values of honour that his race once embraced, but which had been abandoned as time went on. He was as disgusted with the atrocities committed by his empire as most humans were.

At this point, at far as I was concerned, he wasn't Kilrathi, he was something far better.

The growl grew louder. My eyes forced themselves closed and I waited for the searing hiss of the spear impacting on my skin.

But it didn't happen.

After my mind worked through the panic and realised this, my eyes slowly crept open.

The spear had stopped glowing; it hung in the Cat's hand, pointing at the floor. I swatted aside a brief splinter of hope; I couldn't let that affect me now. He'd probably just grown tired of it after all; maybe he wanted to use his claws now.

I forced my head up a few more centimetres, only to be met with a sharp pain in my neck that sent it falling back to its resting position and my line of vision back to the smooth floor.

"It is not our race who has misinterpreted honour." He replied, "It is our destiny, gifted to us by Sivar to rule the stars, it is our rightful place. If your race wished to avoid our wrath you should have stayed in your rightful place, the trees of your home world."

He started laughing then. It was a ghastly sound; he sounded more like he was choking.

I forced a smile and brought my head up again to make sure he saw it.

"If we don't destroy you," I said slowly "Then another species will. Sooner or later the Empire will fall. Every empire dies, there are no exceptions."

"Only the weak die." He responded confidently.

"You consider humanity to be weak, correct?"

"Humans are a weak, clawless species." This proud assertion was accompanied by a triumphant sounding purr.

"And yet we're still alive. This war has gone on for decades, try as you might, you can't defeat us. What does that prove? Except that you're incompetent maybe? Inept?"

The spear fell to the floor with a loud 'clank'. The two feline legs I could see before me began to walk towards me. I tried to step back and my legs promptly gave out from under me, the chains kept me upright, (almost pulling my arms off in the process.)

Two hands closed around my lower arms and pulled me up into a standing position. Once the Kilrathi was satisfied that I wasn't going to fall over, he released his vice like grip, and rested one claw on the side of my head.

"Do you think I have not heard these words before human?" His voice was almost soft, "I have heard these meaningless insults and proclamations from countless shamed prisoners clinging to meaningless defiance. Your opinions are unimportant, as are your threats. I believe you know how poorly your race fares in this war. I believe you know how close defeat is, and I believe you know why your carrier advances on our command ship. So I will ask you once more, why does it challenge a ship which will swat it aside with ease?"

Abruptly, what pride and anger I'd been able to scrounge from the argument died, and the grim reality returned. As did a number of mental images that I didn't want to see. Try as I might I couldn't banish thoughts of home, the _Hermes_, any of it.

Was there a way I could turn this situation to my advantage? Could I mislead them with some convincing piece of misinformation? Make the _Hermes'_ job easier. Maybe if I…

He pushed the claw into my head as I was in mid thought.

At first I didn't feel anything. All I could focus on was the sickening sound of my skin being torn. Bile started to rise in my throat.

_Maybe I could use that._ I thought distantly.

He started to drag the claw down the side of my face; I could feel it scraping against my skull as well as ripping through the flesh.

I could keep myself from screaming, barely, but I couldn't stop the many pained whimpers that came one after the other as the claw traced its way down my face. Tears began to push their way free from behind my clenched eyelids, mingling with the blood that was appearing in the wake of the claw.

There was a sharp hiss on the far side of the small room. With the sound, he hastily pulled the claw from me. From what I could feel he'd cut a swath from the end of my forehead to the side of my mouth. I could feel air hovering into and around the wound. The blood poured down the side of my head, some of it crept into my mouth.

A series of short, quiet growls sounded above me. They sounded different from the one's I'd heard before. It took me a few seconds for my seemingly shocked brain to register the presence of a second Kilrathi in the room. He didn't seem to be paying me any heed, thankfully.

After the two had exchanged a few words in Kilrathi, the newcomer turned and left the room. I groaned as the door slid shut behind him. Leaving my interrogator behind to carry out his duties with undivided attention.

"It seems you are fortunate terran. It seems that additional prey is required on the newly retaken leisure planet in this sector. (I'd later find out he meant the jungle world in the Gimlie system.) You are to receive medical treatment and be taken there to be hunted down by whichever Kilrathi noble wishes to dispose of you." He paused, I'm guessing it was for dramatic effect, "But before that, you are to witness to the destruction of your carrier, and your base on the second planet."

This time, I didn't fight the small stab of hope. It wasn't much, but maybe, just maybe, I'd get to watch as the _Hermes _obliterated the _H'varkann._ When compared to that, death in the jungles didn't seem as bad.

But nothing was guaranteed, I might end up watching the _Hermes_ die. Along with Fool, Adish, everyone.

From that point on, I closed my eyes and tried very hard not to think.

**To be continued**


	15. Goliath part 1

**Chapter 15: David and Goliath, part one.**

"Alright people, this is it."

For once, Trent sounded as nervous as the rest of us felt. The fact that he'd be personally leading this assault probably had something to do with that. Not that the _Hermes_ would be much safer.

On the mission map there was a not particularly comforting picture of the Hermes carrier group in sketchy blue outlines; advancing towards a colossal outline of the _H'varkann_ and its still plentiful escorts.

Two _Kamrani _corvettes, several troop transports and a _Bhantkara_ class fleet carrier comprised the remainder of the Kilrathi assault force. On their own, they wouldn't have been a match for us, with the titanic Kilrathi super weapon in their presence, we were woefully outgunned and outnumbered in terms of fighters. The 17 ships we lost on the botched attack on the _Bhantkara_ had put us in an even worse position then we'd originally been in.

I bristled involuntarily at the thought and tried to push an unwelcome memory of Torrent's smiling face after her first kill from my head.

_She's gone, _I whispered to myself, _and you're probably going to join her before too long, so don't worry about it._

It was that, the realisation that death was just a fire fight away, that kept me together. If death was so far away, what was the point in spending what little time I had left mourning the loss of one who had been spared the hell the rest of us were going through as we waited for the metaphorical cry of 'charge' to be shouted.

Besides, I wanted a shot at that carrier. No matter what happened, I wouldn't die without sending my ship's torpedo up its arse. I'm sure Salamander and certainly Adish felt the same way, between us, we might just take it out.

Of course when this scenario played out in my head there was an overly convenient lack of flak fire and hostile fighters. In reality we'd probably be slaughtered before we got a good look at it.

"I want all Thunderbolts and remaining Hellcats to stick close to the Kilrathi launch bays, if you can fill it will enough fire, we might just stop any unfriendlies leaving the deck." He cleared his throat, "All ships remember that the flak fire will be weakest at the bow of the ship, stay there if you can. Arrows will provide cover and take out a few turrets if at all possible. It will also be your job to try and cover the missiles as best as you can as they approach the target.

"This 'fire in the hole' idea only stands so long as the Cats are still in there." Trent continued, "If too many get out, abandon the plan and engage them."

"What about the rest of us sir?" Someone asked.

"I was getting to that Lieutenant." Trent replied, "Longbows will be separated into three wings, these wings will engage either a corvette or the enemy carrier. If we take that out its one less flight deck the hairballs will be able to use against us."

He then began to read off names and my mind instantly returned to its wanderings.

I briefly regretted not finishing the goodbye letter to my parents. I'd tried for hours to come up with something suitably moving yet positive, and failed miserably. Everything I wrote sounded like an elaborate way of saying 'Sorry but I'm going to get shot to bits tomorrow. Goodbye.'

It seemed I couldn't keep my own resentment out of my letters.

I didn't resent my parents, or Trent or HQ or anything like that. This resentment stemmed from an average, healthy loathing for the universe. I'd carried it around with me since I'd first signed up. I often used to think that I should rightfully be spending my time in a largely unexciting job, getting drunk at every opportunity, wake up twice a week to find I'd slept naked in a tree and doing all other sorts of insane things befitting of a callsign that by all rights I shouldn't have to have. Basically I, and for that matter all of us should have been living and enjoying our lives, not fighting in a desperate war for the survival of my species. As childish and insufferable as this is going to sound, it wasn't fair.

Its kind of strange in a way. I blamed fate for this, not the Kilrathi, even though it was them who'd started the whole thing.

"…Everyone clear?"

A round of 'yes sirs' from Adjudicator squadron was Trent's reply.

"Alright, then listen up all of you." He cleared his throat again. "I know you're scared, we all are. Anyone who isn't is a fool. This won't be a repeat of what happened to the Quinson carrier group, because this time we know what we're doing. We will destroy this thing, and then we'll drive these fucking hairy shitballs from this system."

Nervous cheering, from all of us. I was trying to force conviction, optimism or anything that could be helpful into it, and I met with some success, but there was no quelling the fear, or the feeling that I was going to die. Those wouldn't go until I found myself out there, fighting for my life.

"The Confederation needs a victory here people," Trent continued, "We can't keep going the way we have been. If we take out this thing, there's no reason why other carriers can't do the same. The odds will be evened up, and our side will get a morale boost that is long overdue."

He was never normally that frank with us. The only explanation I could find for this change was desperation.

"I don't care how this looks to you. This is not impossible, and our chances of success are bigger then you probably believe. I don't want one man or woman here going into battle believing for one second that they're going to die. We're going to win this, just as we're going to win the war."

There you go, a spectacular return to form. But you know what, in that moment I believed him. It was a strange feeling, as if all things rational had been stripped away and I could do, be or believe whatever the hell I wanted.

It didn't last.

After a few more seconds in which nervous murmurs, (although I could swear there was a general hint of reluctant optimism among them) filled the room.

"Alright then," Trent said, "Squadrons dismissed, let's get suited up."

Getting out of the briefing room, with all four squadrons crowded into it was a long and awkward process, and things were little better in when we were getting suited up.

**Three hours later**

I won't bore you with how the hours leading up to the battle passed, I think I've done that already anyway. Pretty standard stuff, saying silent goodbyes to those we left behind, half hearted conversation over the radio in which a crude victory celebration was planned, we all sang a truly horrible rendition of happy birthday to Captain Courtney Lamont's son at her request, and sent a recording of it to the _Hermes_ to be transferred at the next mail drop. Standard stuff.

The dreadnought looked massive in the view screen before we were even close to firing range. Any moment I expected to see a hailstorm of gunshots bearing down on us.

"Steady people," Trent said coolly over the radio, "Wait for my signal."

With some effort, I tore my gaze away from the HUD and focused on my weapons display. I activated all my cannons and readied an Image recognition missile. My radar didn't show any red contacts yet, but it was just a matter of time.

"Fool." Trent said over the radio unexpectedly, "Say something to them, see if you can't get under their skin a little."

"Um, sir I don't think…"

My objections were trampled down by several more pilots, including Salamander encouraging me to think of something. I couldn't in good conscience refuse. Besides, it was an order, not a request.

It was about then that I made a solemn promise to myself never to say anything again to a Kilrathi over the radio if I survived this mission. This reputation was more trouble then it was worth sometimes. Everyone expects so much of you.

In the end only one thing came to mind.

"Awake!" I screamed at the top of my lungs in my best elderly, female crone's voice, "Awake ye furry devils, for the righteous hammer of the large one shall strike ye down where ye sit and defecate in your own trousers ye filthy little shits."

I followed this up with some hysterical laughter, (not entirely forced), which sounded a lot like an ion cannon.

The trick with Kilrathi is to say stuff that they won't understand and will waste time trying to figure out, (which happens more often then not if you say it with enough flare in your voice), but at the same time, its always best if you can make sure that they know they've been insulted at the same time, but gibberish on its own can be enough

It seemed to work, no sooner were the words out then I, and presumably everyone else found a snarling Kilrathi face on our com screen. It wasn't wearing a helmet. My guess was that it was the C.O of the _H'varkann_. For a while I thought it was Prince Thrakhath, as it turns out, I wasn't. After a token growl, he started to speak,

"Fools, can you not see what you face, is your kind so desperate that it wastes its ships and soldiers in pointless attacks on the vastly superior ships of the Emp…"

There was a moment of static and then Trent's voice cut in.

"I think we've heard enough. All ships, break and attack, remember your objectives. For the Confederation and humanity!"

I hit my afterburners and accelerated towards the Kilrathi dreadnought before me.

I didn't initially notice the return of the Kilrathi face on my com screen. I only know what he said next because it was recorded in our black boxes.

"Very well apes, come forth and meet your death. Maybe some of you shall meet your end as warriors."

**Five minutes later**

"Thizzle once wizzle a mizzle frizzle Lizzle."

Unfortunately the Vaktoth in front of me wasn't paying much attention to the gibberish I was spouting. Taunts weren't really a wise course of action here, but they made me feel better, helped me concentrate.

I was firing continually, the shots that landed preceded another four that didn't. I was wearing down his shields but not by much. I didn't want to launch a missile yet. I thought I could get away without for now. Save them for when I needed them.

_What the hell are you talking about?_ I asked myself,_ We need one now!"_

I fired an Imrec which tore through the Vaktoth's damaged shields and caused it to veer off course slightly, thereby allowing the Arrow it was firing on to vanish from its sights.

My rear shields were taking hits, behind me it looked like three Dralthi had come to the aid of the Vaktoth; someone was shooting at one of them, a Hellcat I think.

I pulled up hastily and had to quickly pull back down again to stop myself from smashing into a Longbow. There were too many of us out here.

I reduced my speed as much as I thought I could get away with and unloaded a new volley into a Darket that had crept into my sights as it tried, with limited success, to pick off a second Longbow.

The streaks of light from my turrets sailed majestically through the distance and ripped a neat slice of the hull off of the dorsal side of the Darket. My follow up volley obliterated him.

"Score one for the home team!" I said to one of the Dralthi that had reappeared behind me. He didn't reply.

My rear turret was working all the while, firing shot after shot into the forward shields of my pursuers. I didn't have room to after burn, there didn't seem to be any way around this except through these Dralthi.

The 'fire in the hole' plan as Trent had called it was abandoned as soon as we noticed the fifty odd fighters in our radar. They'd known we were coming. Maybe they had a cloaked Strakha lurking near us; maybe they had a secret spy base in system, who knows. We'd only known about them thanks to a Scout corvette, the TCS _Wanderer,_ which Commodore Ammadon had requested from HQ after our tracking stations were destroyed. We were lucky that one had been so close; it was operating in the Gateway system before it got redirected here.

"Oh my God! They've…"

That was the fourth such epitaph I'd heard in this battle.

"They're launching bombers!" Shouted Colonel Trent over the radio, his cockpit was shaking all the while we could see him. "All Death's Shadow pilots who can do so, take them out."

I guess that meant me.

The Dralthi were still trailing me, except that now there were three of them. God only knows where the forth one went.

With all the enemy ships flying around at one, it took me a while to find a Paktahn. Once I did, I found the things were a fair distance from the _Hermes_. Normally this would be a good thing, unfortunately in this case it meant we'd just have to stay out here longer, with all manner of unfriendly ships shooting us to hell. Also it meant we couldn't rely on friendly flak fire, at least not for a while.

I risked a short leap to 1000kps in a patch of space that seemed reasonably clear. I came to an abrupt stop when I noticed anther Thunderbolt coming straight at me.

I swerved to the right, thankfully he swerved in the opposite direction. I sighed a heavy sigh of relief, reduced my speed and found my target again.

I didn't fire off a missile straight away, I wanted to get as close as I could without them seeing me.

I was dealing with a wing of four Paktahn, there were probably four or five more wings, at least, behind them. If not then there would be soon. The furthermost bomber on the right was taking fire from two Arrows, the two on the left were leaving mines in their wake, probably trying to discourage pursuers. Luckily for me, I was coming in from the side.

At 5000km, I sent two Imrec missiles and a stream of gunfire into the exposed flank of the closest bomber. He made an effort to pull away, and might have done so if it wasn't for the two missiles which passed through the space where my targets shields had once been without obstruction and ripped the Cat bomber apart.

No sooner had I targeted a second then I found the Dralthi unloading shots into my rear shields once more.

I'd had enough of this.

I came to a complete stop and executed a 180 degree turn. Thunderbolts were built for endurance, my shields port shields held up pretty well as I turned, my forward shields held long enough for me to take aim and fire.

The lead Dralthi pulled up after the first of my shots started ripping his shields away. I stayed with him, these bastards had been snapping at my heels for long enough, now it was my turn.

After about a minute of him skilfully evading my fire and me narrowly managing to stay with him, (this guy redefined the term 'slippery bastard'.) I noticed one of his wingmen reappearing behind me in the rear view display.

My rear turret sprung to life, but so far that hadn't proved to be a popular deterrent.

I released a decoy. Sometimes, and especially in situations such as these, the cats will mistake them for mines and peel away.

It worked this time, but it wasn't long before he reappeared again, and I was still no closer to destroying his wing leader.

Like a giant claw, the bow of the H'varkann appeared in my HUD, the Dralthi seemed to be flying towards it, probably hoping to get me in range of one of its turrets.

I tried very hard to focus on my job, and a few hits to my rear shields helped me do just that.

Grasping the throttle in one hand, I came to a complete stop.

The second Dralthi sailed over me gracefully, and then turned 180 degrees the same way I had earlier. I thought he was going to fire the same way I had as well, instead, he began to accelerate towards me.

As my brain realised that he intended to ram me, I noticed my hand was absently working the missile controls, almost instinctively, I released one Imrec and pulled up hard.

The Dralthi was in the earliest stages of becoming a fireball when it vanished from my screen. The flaming wreckage collided with my forward and ventral shields, reducing them both to single digit percentages.

There was no sign of the other one, or his other two wingmen for that matter.

It was about this point when Jake Coben's face appeared on the com screen. I doubted this was going to be good news.

"The _Archangel_ has taken a torpedo hit and has taken critical damage," He said nervously, "She needs to fall back. We need every last one of those bombers gone guys, we can't lose many more ships."

No sooner had his face vanished then another took his place, it looked familiar but I couldn't place it."

"My hull is…"

Her words degenerated to a scream as flames engulfed her. It took a long time for the com screen to cut out.

I forced myself to turn my attention away from the dead pilot's last scream. If I didn't focus, I would be next.

I switched through more targets, searching for more bombers. I had no idea how many there still were, but I assumed it would be a large number, between them, I couldn't imagine the _H'varkann_ or the _Bhantkara_ had a shortage.

After a few moments of this, something appeared on my targeting display that didn't look like what I normally saw in its place. I had just enough time to read the word 'Deathfang' above the image of a Vaktoth before the two Dralthi re-appeared behind me and fired.

**To be continued.**


	16. Goliath part 2

**Chapter 16: Goliath, part two**

**Adish's perspective**

We lost two men before we even got in line for a run at the carrier.

2nd Lieutenant Les Morrison was taken out by one too many lucky hits from a Paktahn, and a Vaktoth had taken out 1st Lieutenant Leonid 'Scorpion' Banks in a mutually fatal collision.

There were supposed to be three Thunderbolts providing us with cover, but with the amount of ships swarming around us, carrying out this task, presumably, was like trying to stop a snowball hitting an elderly person in the middle of a crowded street by chasing it with a paper bag.

Of course the sheer number of engagements and obstacles around us also provided some much needed cover.

I fired off a few shots at one of a wing of three passing Darkets that were firing on two Hellcats, his port side took a serious hit, but he managed to stay with his wingmen. I think my rear turret fired a few shots at him, but once he was out of sight my attention hastily switched to the Carrier that was now appearing in front of me.

Most of it was hidden behind one of the claw like segments of the _H'varkann's_ bow. I briefly felt yet another sense of sudden terror at the sheer size of the ship we were planning to destroy before my rear shields started taking hits.

"Taking evasive manoeuvres." I snapped to the remaining four ships in the wing, led by major Tieschowitz.

"All ships assume loose formation. Keep flying towards the carrier and launch your torpedoes, no matter what else happens." Tieschowitz uttered after a few moments, the sound of his voice was bizarrely reassuring. Maybe it was because he'd been in command when we had to run from the dreadnought we were now trying to kill. Maybe his leading us back to safety caused some part of my head to consider this man an asset to my continued survival. Maybe he just had a reassuring voice, it doesn't really matter.

We were still a fair distance from the carrier, and getting within torpedo range required that we expose ourselves to an unnerving percentage of the _H'varkann's_ broadside.

At this thought, I remembered Mongoose's scream as fire from the turrets we were now presenting ourselves to reduced her bomber to a cloud of debris in a matter of seconds.

_They'd pay for that too._ I told myself. In fact that the words 'They'd pay' were pretty much the only thing I'd thought since I received news about Torrent.

I'd lost people I'd known before. People I'd laughed with, flown with dozens of times before, gotten drunk with, and considered friends. But, callous though this will sound, I'd never lost anyone who I'd miss. Specifically people who I'd miss for more then two nights after they'd died and for a few minutes when their names slipped out in conversation. I'd never truly lost a friend before.

What I felt now, in retrospect, is almost a little frightening. I wasn't consumed with rage and a thirst for vengeance that drowned out everything else, although there was no denying it was there, hiding underneath everything else. I was still afraid of dying, and I still wanted to survive, but these were, well, I guess the best way to describe these is that they were secondary objectives. The only thing that mattered to me was taking out that carrier. The ship which, either through flak fire or one of its fighters had killed Torrent. I hadn't a clue which fighter had taken her out, if any, and I couldn't go searching for them, or hope to have much success engaging them, hence the target of my revenge had to be that carrier. If it went down, then I would be ok, and it would be ok if I died because I'd have completed my task.

Outside of the context of an obstacle, the _H'varkann_ no longer mattered to me.

It may interest you to know that about half of our Longbows had been sent to try and damage the _H'varkann's_ launch deck. The hope was to punch enough craters in it to render it unusable. Judging by the swarms of fighters exiting the enemy flight deck, they weren't meeting with much success.

Whatever was shooting at my rear shields abruptly stopped. I never saw what it was, but if I had to guess, based on the rate my shields were fading. It was a Dralthi. It might have been an laser turret for all I knew, but whatever it was had stopped firing.

No sooner had I noticed this then I found myself pulling upwards to avoid an Arrow. When I pulled back down to line myself up with the carrier, I found a stream of gunfire, this time from a Paktahn coming at me.

Whereas a brief surge of fear would have preceded my hand moving to the missile controls, this time it was a surge of anger that caused me to send two friend or foe missiles down the Kilrathi's throat. I didn't care that this was an enemy looking to kill me; all I saw was something in the way.

The Paktahn's forward shields collapsed with the missile hits. Almost as if on cue, the green crosshair signalling my passing into firing range appeared on the HUD. As I fired I felt some of my control go with the plasma and neutron blasts. The gunshots brought my rage to the surface, I almost started screaming as I fired; and I kept firing even after my ship passed through the exploding cloud of debris that had once been a Kilrathi bomber.

To my surprise, it seemed that Tieschowitz had witnessed this.

"Stay calm Haajanen. Focus on your objective, don't lose your head."

In spite of everything, I actually managed to feel a twinge of embarrassment. I rebuked myself for it and searched for more Paktahns, but it looked like they'd all flown passed us. No doubt they were heading for the _Hermes_, or one of her escorts.

I couldn't see the _Hermes_ in my rear view display; they must have still been a long way from their target.

I almost started giggling. The thought of that massive monstrosity as a target had assumed a whole new level of absurdity now that we were here trying to destroy it.

_Don't lose your head _Tieschowitz's voice repeated in my head.

_We have a job to do._

_They'll pay._

_They'll…_

We were approaching the edge of the main battle, ships started to vanish behind us and dogfights were becoming more sporadic. I noticed two Thunderbolts ripping apart a Sorthak not far from us, it vanished from sight before they destroyed it, but it was a nice thing to see.

"Incoming flak fire at seven O'clock." Tieschowitz snapped. I began dodging shots probably before the Kilrathi had noticed me. I didn't want to make this easy for them.

At least one pilot didn't have this foresight. 2nd Lieutenant Brenda Garcia. Her face soon appeared on the com screen once the flak fire started coming at us.

"I'm hit. I've lost flight control, I can't keep her stea…"

"Pilot, eject!" Tieschowitz shouted.

She did eject, and she got clear of her fighter before it exploded. Then, some time later, some fucking Kilrathi gunner decided to use her for target practice. There was nothing left of her.

And then there were three of us.

The _Bhantkara_ was in plain sight now. But it was still a long way out. Flak fire from the _H'varkann_ seemed to increase with each passing second. A string of four red dots also told me of a new wing of fighters that had launched from the carrier and now stood between us and them.

I didn't notice the contact behind us until it was too late.

Up until now, 1st Lieutenant Kate Wang had been faring better then me and Tieschowitz, at least that's what I'd assume. From what I'd seen in the fleeting instants when she appeared in my VDU, she'd had far better luck dodging the flak fire then we had, and she always seemed to manage to keep in line with the carrier. Perhaps it was her single minded focus on it which doomed her.

As her ship passed into my field of vision, I saw gun shots baring into her rear shields, a lot of them. These weren't from the dreadnought.

I banked left in an attempt to assist but it was too late. Two missiles sailed into the Longbow from behind and the ship went up in an instant.

We were dropping like flies.

Now the fear was beginning to show itself.

_Don't lose your head._

I tried desperately to focus on my duties and not give way to rage or panic. I switched my targeting display to the new attacker, and bit back a scream.

The word 'Deathfang' hung above the image of a Vaktoth. I'd heard about him, a Kilrathi ace as arrogant as he was dangerous, countless terran kills to his name, and Tieschowitz now appearing in his firing line. And his Vaktoth appearing in mine.

With barely a rushed glance at the display, I fired another friend or foe missile at the Vaktoth, and then pulled right to try and steer clear of the flak fire that was still coming at us.

He ignored the missile. It impacted on his shields causing such insignificant damage it was barely worth mentioning.

So I fired five.

He took more notice of these, he pulled up, and then to the right, it was hard to keep him in my sights.

Two missiles impacted, the others impacted on each other. After a moment his face appeared on my com screen. It was hard not to let my intimidation show.

"Just like the others." He chortled disinterestedly, "Every ape that has challenged me I have sent screaming into the void. You shall be no different."

Part of me wanted to respond, wanted to tell him where to shove it. But I couldn't. My mind had turned to stone. All I could do was try not to get hit.

His rear turret was firing at me; it wasn't the usual meson turret either. I was having a hard time avoiding the shots from it.

When I saw Jake Coben's face appear on the com screen, it took me a while to realise who he was. I remember feeling relieved; at least the _Hermes_ was still there.

"The _Archangel_ has taken a torpedo hit," He said, his voice and face nervous, "She needs to fall back. We need every last one of those bombers gone guys; we can't lose many more ships."

There was nothing I could do to help.

Deathfang had afterburned away from me, from what I could make out, he looked like he was turning round, he was preparing himself for a run at me.

The distance between our ships began to close suddenly. It was closing at a rate which seemed unnatural. I resisted the temptation to get out of his way. I'd have better luck playing chicken with him. I'd get some shots into him, and he didn't seem like the type to sacrifice himself through a collision.

Tieschowitz got there before me though.

Streams of gunfire from his longbow, along with a missile slammed into the Vaktoth's ventral shields. Deathfang pulled up and moved himself out of Tieschowitz's firing range.

"I'll keep him busy." He said, his voice betraying his intimidation. I couldn't blame him for it, "You get to that carrier, destroy it at all costs."

"Right," I replied, my vice sounding hollow in my ears, "Good luck."

"To you as well."

I swung my ship back around to face the carrier and narrowly avoided colliding with the lead ship of a second wing of bombers. This was the wing launched from the carrier. I thought they'd been sent to deal with us, but they ignored me, save for a few failed shots from the rear turrets. They were going after the cap ships.

The carrier was almost in torpedo range. Moments after I hit my afterburners, the flak fire from the _H'varkann_ abruptly died out.

_Did we get it?_

No, I'd just moved out of their firing range. Still, this made my life easier.

The pre lock chime began to sound, and I soon found myself having to dodge a second load of flak fire from the _Bhantkara_. Dodging this lot was harder considering I had to keep the ship in sight to maintain the lock.

"Adish" Tieschowitz's transmission was garbled, his ship had taken damage. "I can't…" The next part was static; I could only make out a handful of words, "He'll be coming after… soon… Make sure you get…"

Then the transmission cut out.

In my rear view display, I noticed the briefest hint of an explosion.

"Now ape, your comrades are gone, you are to die alone by my hand."

_Maybe, _I thought, _But first things first._

The lock chime sounded, and I fired two torpedoes.

I swerved away, hoping to get the flak fire to concentrate on me instead of the warheads. I swung my ship back around so that I was facing Deathfang. I was almost certain at this point that I was going to die, but I still had something to do.

Despite all my expectations, the torpedoes reached their target. A huge explosion punched vast chunks of the hull out into space. It was a beautiful sight.

_Come on, you've almost got it._

I swung my ship back around, I didn't care about Deathfang anymore. Maybe if I took the carrier out, his C.O would be suitably convinced that he'd failed to defend it and would order him to commit zu'kara.

I doubted it, still, you can dream can't you.

The pre-lock chime sounded again. As did my lock light. I jettisoned decoys but made no attempt to evade the missile, this was too important. I was too close.

I honestly don't know whether it hit or not. I was too preoccupied with the gunfire ripping my rear shields away.

Once they'd gone down, my armour vanished, I tried to pull away but my engines were the next to go. I was dead in the water.

_I guess that will have to do, _I told myself, _I'm sorry Torrent._

As a faint hiss behind me told me that I was venting atmosphere, I lunged forward and with both hands pulled at the ejection cord.

**To be continued.**


	17. Bar fight

**Thanks again to all readers and commenters. Though it's only a few lines, I should point out for disclaimer purposes that a part of this chapter is taken from the WC3 script. You'll know it when you see it.**

**Chapter 17: Bar fight**

**Razor's perspective**

_Oasis_ station was aptly named.

Beyond the stained windows lay the brown, endless deserts of Brimstone 2, along with a number of volcanoes that seemed to be perpetually hurling clouds of shit into the air. Outside, the air would have you coughing your lungs up for days if you were exposed to it for more then a few hours, and the scenery was about as picturesque as a cobweb.

The station on the other hand was the polar opposite of the hell hole it was placed on. Large numbers of exotic plants adorned bright, cheery looking walls. Numerous entertainment systems were built in to the bars and quarters of the station's personnel, they even had a live musician playing in the mess hall every other day. It seemed Confed was taking care of those that it had banished to this brown rock.

Personally I hated it. But that might have been to do more with the situation and not the surroundings.

Before the war heated up in this area of space, I imagine this posting was a decadent one. With the war effort and the front lines many systems away, all these people would have to do is deal with passing transports and send out the occasional patrol wing through the system.

Now, to say things were tense at the base would be an understatement. When news of the Kilrathi incursion into the system reached the base, moral took a spectacular nosedive. It was rumoured that ten or so people had been arrested for trying to stow away on the evacuation transports.

I didn't know if it was true, but I had a feeling it was. There were over 5000 people serving at this base, those numbers would make it easy for potential weasels to slip away without being immediately missed. (Or so they presumably thought.) Also, to the best of anyone's knowledge, there was no great plan to destroy the _H'varkann_, and even if they had known, they probably wouldn't have been too optimistic about it.

It had been decided not to reveal the plan to anyone on this station, save the base commander and her XO. Basically, we weren't sure how many Retros we had lurking about. If they were working with the Kilrathi, they could potentially compromise the entire operation. Again we didn't know if the two sides were working together, but it was common knowledge that the Kilrathi had supplied the Retros with ships before, as a means to an, well, as a means to our end.

Whatever the situation was, the less the Retros knew, the better it was for the rest of us.

Anyway, the second of my two patrols for the day had ended and I was passing the time away in a secluded corner of 'The Brimstone brewery'. A refreshingly unpretentious bar which unlike the other two, boasted no frivolities and didn't have any pesky plants around. When I'd had breakfast earlier this morning in 'Lizzie's Hideaway', I'd spent most of the meal battling with overgrown leaves of a McAuliffe spider plant. Which, for those who don't know, can grow to be as big as a Longbow.

I hated it, I hated sitting on this comfortable station doing nothing but fly eventless patrol missions and listen to the news in bars like this one while elsewhere my friends and colleagues were soon to be fighting for their lives against overwhelming odds. Assuming of course that they weren't doing so already.

My eyes clenched shut and I drew a slow breath. I'd tried not to think about Salamander, but I couldn't help myself, and I owed him better then that. God knows after all we'd been through together I couldn't just force myself not to think about him now.

We'd always known that something could happen to us at any time, and that was a reality we'd always tried not to let get in the way of our relationship. There was nothing we could do about it after all, so why worry about it?

But things were different now; because I had to wait on the sidelines waiting for a Kilrathi attack which may or may not come, while Salamander went up against a Kilrathi dreadnought, plus its escorts. And I knew he'd probably die. I knew he might be dead now. But I didn't know for sure, and that, alongside my worry for him, was killing me.

My eyes snapped to the closest overhead terminal where Barbara Miles was whittling speaking. I moved myself to a table closer to the speakers so that I could hear over the chattering of other bar patrons. I didn't particularly care what she had to say, but I needed some kind of distraction. As I moved closer, her ever annoying voice began to push through the background noise.

"…have again pushed the envelope on the 'bleeding edge' of technology with the roll-out of the new Excalibur fighter. Its advances range from superior ground-fighting capabilities to enhanced weaponry and acceleration design. The Excalibur was designed specifically to out fly and outfight the. . ."

Her words died away as my attention turned to the display behind her. On it, a 3D image of a truly beautiful looking fighter revolved continually, displaying all sides of the ship and occasionally highlighting cannons and other systems. A list of specifications lay next to the image but it was too small to make out anything specific.

I'd been hearing a lot of talk about a new Confederation fighter that was close to mass production, however that was pretty much all I'd been able to hear. There might have been an update of Joan's fighting spacecraft available in my inbox, but what with impending Kilrathi attacks and temporary reassignment, checking my email wasn't high on my list of priorities.

From what I could see, the Excalibur looked like a new heavy fighter, possibly a replacement for the Thunderbolt. God knows it was about time that piece of junk fighter was put out to pasture. I could make out six guns, but I didn't know make they were. By the looks of things, it could also carry no shortage of missiles. At the time the most salient point about the ship was that it looked nice. Briefly I wondered who Trent would choose for the new squadron when the _Hermes_ got its first shipment of these beauties.

_There would be a squadron,_ I told myself once again; it didn't help, but I said it anyway._ Just as there would be a Hermes when this operation was over._

To my disappointment, the Excalibur vanished from the screen. Miles then went on to present the weeks KIA report.

I looked away. If the worst had transpired, the names of the dead from the _Hermes_ wouldn't be up there, and selfish though it may sound, I didn't want to see a list of the dead.

"Mind if I join you ma'am?" Said a surprisingly loud voice from above. I looked up to find Captain Harry 'Ditch' Finchley. Another 'Fire Wings' pilot from the _Hermes._ We'd all been sticking together for the most part since we arrived. The majority of the base's personnel weren't too happy to see us. Oh no one had said anything to that effect, but you could see it on their faces. The local Sabre pilots, (the base hadn't been blessed with modern fighters, not that I have anything against the Sabre), anyway, they objected to us coming in and upstaging them, (as they saw it). The rest of the base's personnel felt that we should be fighting alongside the rest of the _Hermes'_ pilots instead of sitting down here waiting to be of some use.

"No, go ahead." I replied, pushing out a seat for him.

"Thanks."

Finchley was a wiry man who looked like he'd been holding back the urge to cry since we'd arrived. I couldn't blame him. Like me, he'd left a loved one back onboard the _Hermes,_ A 1st Lieutenant Nathan 'Flute' Lloyd.

"Just got back?" I asked him.

"Yeah," He replied with sudden enthusiasm, I think he'd wanted me to ask this, "We ran into a wing of Dralthi at our second nav point."

I raised an eyebrow; this kind of news was something I normally heard from rookies, some kids will blather about their first kill for weeks afterwards. Once you got older you begin to realise that one, individual kills like that don't really matter, and two, no one really cared.

He caught the look and his face shifted to form an expression of embarrassment.

"Well that's not really the point, what I mean is." He paused, exhaled and tried again, "One of them blurted out something about vengeance, he sounded crazy, even for them, and the way he was flying... You don't think, maybe, well, you don't think he was from one of the _H'varkann's_ escort ships do you? I know Trent sent some of our guys to take them out, maybe they got one of them, or all…"

I tuned out at this point as he started rambling. I guess it was possible, although he might be trying to avenge the death of a former wingman for all we knew. It certainly wasn't the _H'varkann_ that he was angry about. We'd know if that had blown up.

"It would make sense." I replied.

He opened his mouth to say something else, then closed it and looked at the table. For a moment we just sat quietly.

"I can't take this." He said after a moment, "Listen to me, I sound like a fucking cadet. I…" He trailed off and pushed out another long breath.

_I should be out there with him, _I finished silently for him, _I should be out there fighting instead of waiting to hear he's gone. And I'm clinging to whatever good news I can, even if I have to make educated guesses because it's the only hint of hope I can grab at._

I reached out a hand and placed it on his shoulder.

"Listen to me," I said, trying to sound both forceful and compassionate at the same time, "He isn't dead."

He bristled, probably annoyed that I'd latched on to the reason for his anger, or because I was bringing it up. I searched my mind, trying to come up with some sort of quasi-original comforting words, but instead I had to settle for pushing him to the floor.

"What the…?"

Initially, no one seemed to notice them, everyone was too caught up in their own activities, and the guns weren't really that loud. It had been pure luck that I'd been facing the entrance.

The shot raced through the spot where Finchley had been sitting and burned a hole into the wall behind me.

Another shot had left one man with a gaping hole in his gut. The person who'd been sitting next to him let out a short ear piercing scream at the sight. This alerted anyone who hadn't already noticed to the presence of the five or so people who were killing everyone they could get a clear shot at.

Another shot raced past my head and I threw myself behind the table. I tried to push it over to form some sort of barricade, only to find that it was fastened to the deck.

_Shit._

"What the hell is going on?" Finchley shouted for both of us. I don't think the fact we were being shot at had fully sunk in for him yet.

I looked around me, trying to find some place which provided better cover. The only thing I could find was the bar, and that was about twenty feet away. Anyone who made a run for that would instantly become target practice.

A third shot sailed overhead. From behind me I heard a pained grunt, my head snapped around and I saw a youngish looking woman with a smoking hole in her neck fall backwards onto the table behind her.

"Infidels!" Came a shout from the direction of our attackers over the noise of the screams and gunfire, "Show yourselves, accept the punishment that your decadence and technological corruption has brought…"

The spokesperson then 'oofed' heavily. I risked a glance over the table and noticed that someone, a tall man built like an Enyo desert rhino, through a truly insane move had snuck up behind the gunmen and engaged them with nothing but a chair.

Having said that, he seemed to be doing alright with it, soon after knocking the preacher to the ground, he hurled the furniture at three of the remaining attackers, it was pretty clear now that we were dealing with Retros.

With one hand he reached down to the floor and hoisted up the gun of the man he'd knocked down and fired two rushed shots in the general direction of the Retros who by the looks of things were still trying to organise themselves.

One went down, screaming and clutching at the crispy entrails that were falling from his gut. Another was grazed on the shoulder, but this didn't seem to stop him.

The would be hero seemed to have more sense then I thought. As the Retros seemed to be on the verge of recovering enough to return fire, he threw himself behind an illuminated menu display which was built into a roughly 6ft high outcropping from the floor. A few gunshots followed him, causing a picturesque shower of sparks to fall from the display. It occurred to me that this man was probably an off duty marine. Shame there weren't more of him.

Two more people were rushing over to try and attack the Retros, but it was too little, too late. The first one took a shot in the chest before he was even close. The second one managed to jump one of the Retros, this one a woman who looked like she was snarling with rage, probably at being challenged by an 'infidel'.

Just as it seemed that this 'holy warrior' might go down, a second Retro smashed the butt of what I could now see was a rifle into the face of the doomed Confed woman. As she hit the floor, her face now stained with blood, he fired once into her midsection.

There was a second or two in which nothing happened, and then they started firing again.

There was less gunfire this time, I hazarded a glance and discovered that two of the enemy had moved off to cover the room's sole entrance, (not including the window.)

"Intruder alert!" Boomed the intercom at last, "Armed human intruders have been sighted on levels 1, 3, 4…" The speaker read off from a long list of levels which no one really listened to. I don't think he mentioned ours. Not surprising since no one here could get to a com system and call for help.

"Fire in the hole!" Screamed someone behind me.

Even if you're not a marine, it doesn't take much sense to figure out what to do when someone chants these magic words. I threw myself to the floor, placed my hands over my head and waited for the deafening sound of an explosion.

For a few moments everything seemed to stop, the gunfire had died out. There were panicked shouts coming from the direction of the Retros.

And then I heard the sound of a glass hitting the floor.

It took me a few seconds to work out what had happened, it was a decoy. The new wave of Confed marines or whoever they were had hurled an empty glass at the Retros as a distraction. They were trying to buy themselves time to get up close.

I stayed on the floor, it seemed safer. I lifted my head to try and hear what was happening. Seven or eight people behind us were charging at the Retros. At the same time, the man hidden behind the menu display had reappeared and was firing into the disorganised hostiles.

By the looks of things, the Retros at the door were busy trying to shoot at the people charging towards them, only to be hindered by gunfire. The other Retros had fallen to the floor, still awaiting the explosion from the 'grenade'.

One of the Retros by the door took a shot in the chest, fell against the wall and slid down it. The other now seemed to be firing blindly, panic was probably taking a hold of him. One of the new attackers took a shot in the leg, but that was as bad as it got. This Retro soon went down after a well aimed laser blast caught him in the face.

The other two Retros seemed to have figured out what was going on and were trying to pick themselves up, but they soon went down again as a large number of pissed off Confederation servicemen and women landed repeated kicks on them.

"Alright people that's enough." Said one of them after a few moments, "They're both out of it. Knife, Zach, Flail, Perry, search 'em and get 'em out of here."

I forced out a sigh of relief and pushed myself to my feet.

"Attention!" The intercom boomed again, "There is a heavy Retro presence on level 6. We are also detecting inbound Kilrathi fighters. All available marines and pilots are to assist immediately."

_If the Kilrathi are here, that means they must have gotten past the _Hermes

_Not necessarily, this could be a..._

_Look we don't have time for this!_

With that last thought, I turned to the exit and sprinted.

**To be continued.**


	18. Goliath part 3

**Thanks again to all readers.**

**Chapter 18: Goliath part 3**

**Salamander's perspective**

The first of the Paktahn ripped apart under the constant lashing of my cannons. The other three continued on their way as if nothing had happened. They seemed determined to get to the _Hermes_ and her escort ships. Maybe the Kilrathi had worked out what the Hermes was planning, and what could happen if all went well. Maybe the Kilrathi bombers were just getting overconfident what with their vastly superior numbers.

I'd been trying to pull back to the _Hermes_ since the _Archangel_ had to pull back, they'd need every ship they could get to take out the incoming bombers. Every time I tried to pull back though I seemed to attract the attention of a passing Dralthi or Darket wing. Thereby causing me to waste time dealing with them. This was time I couldn't afford to waste.

I'd been lucky that the latest Paktahn wing had passed right by me. By the looks of its course I'd guess they'd came from the _Bhantkara_. It seemed that the wing from Adjudicator squadron that was tasked with its destruction hadn't met with much success.

_Adish is part of that wing._

_That's enough!_

I pulled my ship around and tried to chase the wing of bombers, only to find the path blocked once again, this time by two Dralthi. I considered trying to get passed them but doubted I'd get very far; especially when the incoming missile alarm sounded.

I ejected a decoy, pulled my ship downwards and charged, hoping all the while that there would be enough distance to get underneath the missile.

After a few seconds the lock alarm died out, it seemed it had worked. My rear turret sprang to life and started landing shots into one of the two Dralthi.

I pulled my ship around, only to receive a face full of cannon fire. I pulled to the left but not before releasing a friend or foe missile at the Dralthi on the right.

Its shields were already partially damaged by me rear turret. The missile I noticed caused some slight damage to the enemy's left wing. I don't know what systems I hit but I noticed in my rear view display that the pilot was falling back behind his wingman.

After a few seconds I pulled my ship downwards again, and then hastily pulled a 180 degree turn. This gave me a few seconds to fire at the Dralthi without getting shot at in return. I lined my ship up to face the incoming Dralthi, and fired.

As it turns out those few seconds were all I needed. The shots tore through the enemy fighter's ventral shields and must have hit his fuel tank, the fighter exploded much sooner then I would have expected it to.

I quickly called up the second Dralthi and accelerated towards it. I expected him to do the same and then launch a missile or two at me. Instead, he ran. I must have taken out his weapons, that was the only thing that made sense.

_So why wasn't he trying to ram me?_

_Who cares? Just shoot the bastard._

And that's what I did. I fired quickly before the Dralthi managed to get out of firing range, his engines soon took damage, slowing him down and allowing me to get in closer. A few seconds later, he was gone.

I switched targets as fast as I could until I found another Paktahn. The first one I found was just launching from the _Bhantkara_, it made sense to wait for it to come closer.

The second Paktahn had taken major damage on its starboard side. It didn't seem too far away from dying. It was also about 23km away. It didn't make much sense to waste time flying over to take it out if someone else would do that in a matter of moments.

After a lot more enemy ships appeared and disappeared on my screen, I finally found a suitable target, by the looks of things two Paktahn closing in on…

"My cockpit is crack…" And then a scream, and then silence.

_Ignore it._

The two Paktahn were closing in on the _Rome_, one of the _Sheffield_ class destroyers. At least one was under fire, presumably they already lost two…

"Do you see terran? Your kind dies all around you. Thus far I have slain five in this short battle. The cowardly final shrieks of your comrades are a testament to my skill."

_Ignore it!_

_To hell _with_ that._

I searched my radar for the most likely Cat to have sent that message. I expected he'd be coming for me, otherwise he wouldn't bother talking to me.

A solitary red dot was closing fast from behind me. It looked like he was coming from the _Bhantkara_. Even if he wasn't the one who'd just admitted to killing five of us, he'd still pay for it.

When I finally managed to select his ship I had no doubt it was him who'd sent the transmission.

Kramm 'Deathfang' nar Caxki. A master of taunts and a master in the cockpit. I didn't know how many human pilots whose deaths he was responsible for, but it was a lot, a hell of a lot. Rumour had it this guy's piloting ability was second only to Prince Thrakhath himself, although the source of that rumour, (Scar, with abut twelve beers in him), was questionable.

He was not 10 kilometres away from me.

A surge of panic shot up my back, it was hard to ignore. My cockpit suddenly seemed smaller.

"Run ape," he said over the com once more, I visibly jumped at the sound of his voice. I couldn't let myself be intimidated, that would get me killed in no time. "Run, while you still can. You cannot hope to defeat a Kilrathi noble such as myself."

"Christ aren't you full of yourself?" I replied, the thought of those five dead pilots from the _Hermes _putting anger in my voice, "Tell me, do you nauseate your opponents to death or can you actually fight."

He responded with an Imrec missile.

I pulled left, ejected a decoy and all the while had gunshots raining down on me. He was a good shot I had to give him that.

I pulled back to the right and lined my ship up with his. If I let him get behind me he'd finish me in three seconds flat.

I returned fire and accelerated towards him. The closer I was the easier it would be to avoid his fire.

My forward shields were failing very fast. His forward shields were only beginning to show signs of damage.

I launched two Imrec missiles, my last two. Deathfang's shields stayed up but this seemed to convince him that getting out of my line of fire was a good idea. He would have destroyed me if he'd stayed put and continued firing. But he didn't. I don't know, maybe he didn't want to damage his fighter, maybe he thought he could get me just as easily without endangering himself, maybe he thought that standing still land killing me lacked finesse.

Either way, I was still alive. He'd pulled up and after burned straight over me. My rear turret kicked in, not to much avail it seemed. His on the other hand soon started scratching at my rear shields.

I came about, my ship now feeling especially sluggish. He was already a good distance away from me, I afterburned in an attempt to catch up to him, but even ordinary Vaktoths were faster then Thunderbolts. Deathfang seemed to be flying a Vaktoth mark 2. The shields were definitely more powerful then the standard model; and the weapons had clearly been upgraded.

After this would be chase, he came around again. I lined up his ship as best as I could, but he was a slippery bastard. He seemed to weave around my targeting crosshair as if he could see where it was.

Then he came at me.

He was firing before I even realised he'd managed to turn round, my forward shields, which had barely recovered to 50 efficiency, began to wither again. I pulled to the left, accelerated for a few seconds and pulled my ship around in time to see him fly past.

I fired, and despite some crafty evasive action, I managed to land a number of hits, none of which seemed to do much damage.

I gave the radar the briefest of glances, hoping to find a nearby Confed pilot who could provide assistance. Unfortunately, the only ships near me were Kilrathi fighters, and they seemed happy enough to sit back and let Deathfang finish me off.

He turned to face me again, he was much closer this time.

I started rolling, firing as I did so. Ridiculous though it looked it allowed me to evade some of his gunfire, sort of. Some of the shots that were aimed at my forward shields I managed to divert into my dorsal and ventral shields instead. He seemed to be targeting my forward shields most of all, so I needed to keep them intact.

The down side of course is that the same thing happened when I returned fire. His shields took damage, but it was nothing to shout about.

If we kept going on like this it would be Christmas before one of us died.

"Mayday! Mayday! This is the TCS _Dominion, _we have taken serious…"

From somewhere to my right, there was a momentary flash of light. And then it was gone, along with yet another of the _Hermes' _escort ships, this one was a _Tallahassee_ class cruiser.

It felt different from when I'd seen the _Boston_ blow up. There wasn't the feeling of pained disbelief. I wasn't surprised this had happened. I'd known that we'd probably lose at least a few cap ships in this engagement and to be honest I was surprised it'd taken this long for one to explode.

That didn't stop me feeling angry about it though.

After a few more seconds in which nothing seemed to happen, Deathfang's face reappeared on my com screen. I'd almost forgotten about him.

"It is hopeless ape." He said in between growls of laughter, "You and your kind are unworthy to challenge the sons of Kilrah. Soon this system shall be cleansed of your…"

I closed the channel. He was holding position a fair way away, probably waiting for me to charge at him. God knows I wanted to. I wanted to rip that smug, hairy shitballs apart. He knew that too. In fact I'm guessing he was counting on it.

Instead I just sat there, staring at the paper thin outline of his fighter in the distance. Trying at the same time to push my on rage aside and try and think up a way to kill this bastard. My ship it seemed was woefully ill equipped for the task however.

"I see you do no have the courage to face me," He chortled again after a few moments, "Honourless scum, has not the death of your…"

I closed the channel again. An idea had sprung to mind, not a great one by any stretch of the imagination, but it might at least shut this furry windbag up.

I brought my ship into the maximum possible firing range before decelerating to 50 KPS. Once there I fired. As did he.

As I predicted, he'd hoped I'd get in closer; he'd probably then slip past me and kill me from behind. This way his task was more difficult. We were, more or less, evenly matched.

Evading his fire was a fairly painless task. Of course it still made returning fire difficult, although that wasn't really the point. I was hoping that he'd get tired of this long distance piss take of a battle before I did.

When he did get tired, he didn't come at me as I had hoped, instead he fired two missiles in my direction.

I didn't have a choice this time, I had to run.

I banked right hard and hit the afterburners. The first three decoys did nothing. By the time I launched the fourth, he was already firing at me.

The lock light died, not that it made me feel much better. My rear shields were still falling and try as I might I couldn't shake him.

Another idea came to me, actually it was originally Scar's idea, and again it wasn't a great one.

I started releasing decoys one after the other in Deathfang's path. I noticed the blue glow as the things impacted on his shields. I doubted they'd do much damage, I just hoped to reduce his visibility.

As if in answer to my hopes, he pulled up about 25 degrees. Maybe the decoys coupled with my rear turret were inflicting more damage then I realised; maybe not. It didn't matter either way.

I swung my ship around sharply, uttered a silent prayer and started firing before I'd even lined him up in my gun sights.

He wisely started to accelerate away. Even though his ship was faster, the gap still took a while to open far enough to put me out of firing range.

Like I've said, he was a slippery bastard. It was difficult enough to stick with him, let alone shoot at him.

And then two missile hits sent him into a spin.

_What the…?_

"Spinning is often the sign of idiocy." Chortled Fool over the radio, presumably on an open channel to both Deathfang and me. Though he was trying for amused lightness, there was an unmistakable hate in his voice.

_How's he get here?_

_Just shoot you idiot!_

And I did. I hit my afterburners, closed the gap whilst Deathfang was still in a sin and unloaded shot after shot into his already weakened shields.

Before too long, he managed to pull his ship out of the spin and turn it to face me; shortly before an explosion tore his right wing off and sent him into another one.

I was surprised the other guy wasn't firing.

"Curse you apes!" Deathfang coughed from his now critically damaged cockpit. "I can not be defeated by such as you…"

And then a scream, and then silence.

It was very freeing watching him die, it was like pushing your head out of the water after a hasty, panicked ascent and being able to breathe again. Also, that was a Kilrathi ace that I'd just taken out.

_With Fool's help._

_Yeah, yeah._

Anyway, as you can imagine this doesn't happen every day…

_Where is Fool anyway?_

I searched my radar and soon found his thunderbolt accelerating away from me. A little way away from his blue dot laid an orange one. The _Bhantkara_. The carrier that had killed Torrent. I soon realised why Fool was heading towards it, he was going to avenge his friend's death, or die trying.

And so was I.

I couldn't get back to the _Hermes_ in time to do any good, one way or the other, and it seemed like Adjudicator squadron weren't going to take this out. What I might be able to do though is make sure no more bombers launched from that carrier, and help to avenge Torrent at the same time.

And possibly Adish.

I came about, hit my afterburners and selected the torpedo in the missile display. It was hard to be sure but it looked like the _Bhantkara_ had already taken damage.

I was still closing in when I saw Jake Coben's face appear on my com screen for a second time. He looked as I imagine a lot of us looked. Vengeful. And his voice echoed that vengefulness.

"Missiles 1 and 2 are away."

**To be continued**


	19. Goliath part 4

**Thanks again to all commenters and reading persons. It will probably be a while before my next update. I'm heading off to university soon and I probably won't have as much time to write as I do now.**

**Chapter 19: Goliath, part 4**

**Scar's perspective**

This was it. The moment of truth, for lack of a better description, had arrived. The outcome of this engagement depended on whether the missiles survived long enough to bury themselves in their target, (and also if tactical was right about how effective they'd be.)

It was Swift Blade squadron's job to cover the missiles as they made their way to the _H'varkann_. Doing so however was next to impossible. It was next to impossible to pick the missiles out among the countless other missiles on the radar.

As I glanced at the radar I tried very hard not to spare much thought to the ratio of red dots to blue ones.

A Darket flew overhead, and then another a few seconds later. I wasn't sure where they were going but I figured they'd make as good a target as any. Besides, it would probably be Darkets that would try and take the missiles out, at least mostly.

I accelerated and positioned myself behind the closest one. Debris was beginning to pile up around us; the assorted pieces of charred fighter seemed to cluster in my way. Moving around them widened the gap between me an the Darket.

The good news is that he hadn't noticed I was chasing him. This made getting a heat seeker lock relatively painless.

"Missiles 3 and 4 are away."

I released the missile. My eyes then snapped to the radar where I saw 2 yellow dots on top of the light blue one representing the _Hermes_.

Abruptly, my right VDU switched from displaying the Darket to displaying a Dralthi with a damaged wing. It seemed the missile had performed well.

I afterburned towards the missiles before they became lost in the jumble of radar dots.

It didn't look like any of the cats had noticed them, but I couldn't be sure.

Another Darket appeared in my HUD on my way in. I targeted it and sent an Imrec missile in its direction. I hadn't used many of my missiles up to this point. With so many enemy ships about, I figured it would be best to save them for the critical moment. It felt good to finally be getting rid of some. Keeping them in my ship, in an irrational way, felt like holding back in this battle.

The Imrec missile didn't meet with much success, and it seemed I had incurred the wrath of the Kilrathi pilot I'd fired it at. I soon found two lines of meson cannon fire smashing into my dorsal shields.

_Dammit._

If I engaged him, I'd probably lose track of the missiles. If I tried to run, I may lead him, and God knows how many others to the missiles and may very well find myself with a heat seeker or two up my arse.

No choice, I had to engage him.

Be that as it may, trying to hide the missiles from the Kilrathi was pretty ridiculous when you think about it. They knew that we knew that torpedoes were useless against that thing; and I think the Cats had finally figured out that we didn't make a habit of ramming our enemies, so what did that leave us to hit them with?

They were probably just going to crash into bits of debris anyway.

I banked up and narrowly missed smashing into the Darket. I'm not sure if he was trying to hit me, but either way I should have been more careful.

I came about and found myself head to head with my target, who was already firing at me. I returned fire for a second or two and then strafed out of the way.

His was an interesting strategy I'll give him that. I tried to spin around and try and get behind him, only to find that he'd come to a dead stop and was firing at me from less then a kilometre away. On a stronger ship like a Thunderbolt he would have died in seconds, if I'd been any slower he might just have killed me.

As it was, I fired off a second Imrec and watched as his ship blasted apart. At this close distance, he had no hope of evading the missile. Unfortunately, at this close distance I had no hope of getting out of the way of the explosion. That, coupled with the damage the late Kilrathi pilot had inflicted had stripped away my forward shields and tore a lot of armour off of my bow. One of my ion cannons had also taken damage.

"Missiles 5, 6 are away."

"Decoy 1 is away." Uttered a second communications officer. He might have been from the _Rome_.

The escort ships, those that were left, were firing their own antimatter warheads as decoys, aimed at the well protected outer hull. The _Hermes,_ apparently, had enough missiles to do the job, and having missiles closing in on the same relatively narrow point from all angles was an unacceptable collision risk.

"What the?" There was a slight flicker of panic as Jake Coben uttered these words, "Missiles one and two have been destroyed, Arrows, where the hell are you?"

No more pissing about. I afterburned in, trying to position myself so that I was facing the bow of the _H'varkann_. From there I launched a missile at a nearby Dralthi that seemed to be making life difficult for a Hellcat. I followed this up with a volley of gunfire.

I was lucky; I must have hit a sensitive area or something. The starboard wing broke off the Dralthi, sending it into a spin. It looked like the pilot ejected but I couldn't be sure. I kept firing and either me or an self-destruct system on the Dralthi destroyed it.

A Confederation pilot, probably the Dralthi's former target, appeared on my com screen and uttered a few words at me in a language I didn't recognise. I'm guessing he was saying thank you. Then again she might have been complaining that I'd stolen a kill from him for all I knew.

I sighted two yellow dots on the radar, judging by the way they sat in the central circle of my radar and didn't seem to be moving, I guessed I was sitting in front of them.

I checked my rear view display and sure enough, I was sitting in front of two of the Cap ship missiles which...

"Missiles 7 and 8 are away."

As I was saying…

"Decoy 2 is away."

The missiles were coming up fast behind me and soon passed underneath my ship. I saw the bulky looking things pass me and continue on to the mammoth of a ship which lay before them. After I'd spared the _H'varkann_ a glance, the missiles suddenly seemed very small.

_Those things are meant to take that out?_

I pulled my mind away from a moment's contemplation as to what tactical was smoking when they came to this conclusion and looked around me for targets.

Two Darkets were heading my way, as were two more Arrows.

A Vaktoth wing was heading out from the _H'varkann's _flight deck. The thing seemed to have no end of fighters.

On top of that, there was a Sorthak hovering a few kilometres away from me and the missiles. It was probably him who'd taken out the first two.

There were Confed ships heading my way but they were too far out. I had no choice but to do something very stupid.

I charged at the Sorthak at 1400KPS. I'd never before faced one of these but I'd often heard them described as a cross between a Vaktoth and a destroyer. Wonderful.

"What is this?" Asked a Kilrathi voice on the radar, "You dare to attack?"

I guess its not an unreasonable question considering the obvious disadvantage. Although knowing the Kilrathi, he'd probably say the same thing if he was flying a Salthi and I was flying a Thunderbolt.

When I was in range I fired my last remaining Imrec at him. He let it hit. His port shields it seemed took some quite heavy damage.

I fired as soon as I could, only to find a hailstorm of multicoloured energy blasts coming at me.

"Decoy 3 is away."

"So are missiles 9 and 10"

The Sorthak was a lot faster and a hell of a lot more manoeuvrable then it rightfully should have been considering its size. Its pilot however didn't seem to take full advantage of this. I guess he didn't see me as a threat. I managed to position myself behind him. Only to be greeted by a second hailstorm of meson blasts.

I had two heat seekers left. I prepared both, and tried to keep the enemy ship in my viewer as I tried to dodge the incoming fire. I met with limited success, I lost the lock twice and my front shields which had not fully recovered from the first hits were on the brink of failing.

At almost the same time as I sent the missiles off, two large cracks appeared in my view screen. Miraculously, they weren't bad enough to cause any loss of oxygen; still, they were a wise and well timed warning to get out of the way.

I turned around and afterburned in the opposite direction.

I checked my damage control system and found that my damaged ion cannon was now damaged beyond repair. I had pretty much forgotten it was gone. Another piece of bad news was that my ejector system was equally as dead.

That's not an easy thing to live with. It took me a few moments before I could pull myself around for another shot at the Sorthak, which was now sitting perfectly still.

_Why is it doing that?_

On my tactical display, the enemy ship's engines were bathed in red. Those heat seekers must have taken out its engines. They also seemed to have done something to its rear turrets, when I moved in and tried to strafe behind the stationary, albeit rotating fighter; I was greeted not by gunfire but by the welcome sight of the charred engines of my opponent.

That was my second lucky shot for the day. I couldn't help but wonder if this good fortune was some sinister omen of doom.

It still took me a while to take it out. The Kilrathi had built these things to last. If my opponent was any indication of his peers however, they hadn't trained the pilots to do the same.

"Missiles 11 and 12 are away."

_Those are the last two._

I didn't feel the usual satisfaction which accompanied a kill this time, nor the shocked surprise at taking out a ship which outclassed mine in almost all respects. All I could think of were the Vaktoths.

When I consulted the radar, I found a jumble of blue dots moving in and around a jumble of red ones. The cavalry had arrived.

"Decoy 4 is away."

Damaged or not, I still had to get in there.

I afterburned and tried not to notice just how close I was getting to the dreadnought. That became somewhat harder when a laser turret started taking a few pot shots at me. None of the shots hit me, but it didn't do much for my piece of mind. Trent was right; there wasn't much flak fire near the bow. That presumably, was considered unimportant.

"I have failed my race!"

There was a bright light from behind one of the claw like outcroppings at the front of the dreadnought. A thoroughly irrational surge of hope that we might have just landed a hit on the beast died abruptly as I realised that the explosion had not come from the dreadnought.

I was later to learn that two pilots from Adjudicator squadron had managed to get through the flak and destroy the _Kamrani_ corvette that was escorting the _H'varkann_. Hardly a major victory I know, but still it's something.

At the time I didn't have time to dwell on the thought. I was coming into firing range.

There was a second explosion. This one had definitely come from the dreadnought. It was barely noticeable; there was a faint flicker of light that shone in what I could see of the enemy launch bay. The missiles had passed straight through it and had exploded at some point within the ship, possibly on the engines, I wasn't sure how far in they could get.

The H'varkann itself didn't seem any the worse off for it.

To top it all off, Jake Coben's face soon reappeared on my com screen. He didn't look happy.

"Missile 7 is down. We can't lose any more guys!"

_You don't say._

There was a Vaktoth not too far away from me that was taking fire from two Hellcats; another was firing at those two Hellcats; that was my target. Maybe I could keep it busy enough for some other ships to come and help me kill it.

I was, as you can probably imagine, a little surprised to see a Thunderbolt exit the _H'varkann's_ launch bay. For a moment I thought he might be a Retro fighting to aid his Kilrathi allies, (they have worked together in the past, sort of, I think. I'm not too clear on the details.)

When he started firing on my target however I soon realised this wasn't the case.

I finally came into firing range and unleashed a round of gunshots into the Vaktoth's dorsal shields. The pilot was wisely focusing his attention on the Thunderbolt, I doubt he even noticed me.

Another few shots from a Kilrathi turret sailed past. I pulled up and prepared to swing around for another attack run.

The face of another unfamiliar Confederation officer appeared on my com screen. I expected she was going to announce the launch of decoy 5. She wasn't.

"This is Captain Natalie Moran of the _TCS_ _Toronto_. The _Hermes_ has taken a torpedo hit. The bridge has been completely destroyed, the command staff are all dead and her communications are out. I'm taking command of the fleet."

I tried _very_ hard not to feel anything; and failed. A lot of good people on my carrier had just been killed. Jake Coben, Commodore Ammadon, Commander Finchley. Each of their faces passed through my head right up until a Kilrathi laser turret finally scored a hit on my shields.

Then the faces were gone, replaced with a renewed enthusiasm for killing.

I pulled back around and fired again, this time into the ventral shields of the Vaktoth. These had already taken some damage and I was able to tear some of his armour away. It was a missile hit from the Thunderbolt that finished him off though.

It was about now that I realised the cats weren't launching any new fighters. Whoever was piloting that Thunderbolt must have smashed up their flight deck or taken out some fighters while they were still on the ground or done something. Whoever they were, they were a braver person then I. I'd never have flown into that thing.

We'd managed to clean out a fairly neat path for the missiles, many of which I could now see advancing on the _H'varkann_. However my radar also showed a lot of Kilrathi ships heading our way. It was a race against time.

I targeted what I could only hope was the closest enemy ship and began to speed towards it.

**Four Minutes later**

The last of the seven missiles to reach the target disappeared down the launch bay, and for what seemed like an eternity nothing seemed to happen; except for the continued attack from thirty or so Kilrathi fighters.

"My cockpit is burning!" Screamed someone I didn't know. The fourth person to say something like that in the last two minutes, "I can't eject, I…"

We'd taken out a lot of enemy fighters in this battle, most of which were cublings as Z'ratmak would call them, probably pulled from training prematurely to make up the numbers on the dreadnought. The Kilrathi had no shortage of replacements for their fallen comrades. We, on the other hand were tired, mostly out of missiles and had taken more then a few dents. And there weren't a great many of us left. There had only been about sixty or so of us before we'd attacked.

I was busy trying to avoid being ripped apart by the Vaktoth I had rushed off to engage. With what seemed to be little effort, he had gotten behind me and had already hit my engines. It was all I could do to try and not get shot. I couldn't outrun him, and fighting back was out of the question.

"Insufferable creatures. You fall before us like…"

He must have seen it at the same time that I did.

A colossal explosion tore through the _H'varkann's_ engines. It was hard to make out anything with the mass of hull in the way, but the explosions that followed were easier to see.

They seemed to creep up the hull from the engines, don't ask me to explain the science behind it, all I know is that the missiles seemed to have created a chain reaction of explosions along the _H'varkann's_ hull. Maybe some fuel lines or power conduits connecting the engines to other areas of the ship had been hit. Ah you know what, don't listen to me. I don't know 'how' the ship blew up, and to be honest I couldn't care less.

When they reached the mid section of the ship, something, possibly the reactor must have blown up.

I watched, unable to look away as the resulting explosion tore the _H'varkann_ in two. The aft section seemed to break apart as it drifted backwards. The front section looked reasonably intact, save for the burn marks around one end.

Silence followed. I felt as disbelieving as I imagine the Kilrathi must have done. It was about this time that I made a promise to myself never again to doubt Intel reports, no matter how far fetched they seemed.

I involuntarily started giggling; this then erupted into a fully fledged laugh. I could only imagine the looks on the Kilrathi's faces.

As unfathomably pleased, and as irrationally relieved as we all doubtlessly were; this hadn't really improved our situation all that much. There were still a lot of enemy fighters, as well as an enemy carrier to worry about. We were still damaged and weary. Half the _Hermes'_ escort ships were out of the fight and the _Hermes_ herself had effectively had her head blown off.

And as you can imagine, the Kilrathi were more then a little upset about this new development.

**To be continued.**


	20. Observer

**Thanks Bien Canonizado** **for your review. Don't appologise if you've been ill and especially if surgery was involved. I'm glad to see you're alright and i'm glad that this story was of some help to you. The reason some chapters may drag out is simply because i'm trying to keep them the same length. I'll try and work on that in later chapters.**

**Chapter 20: Observer**

**Torrent's perspective**

They took me to the bridge in the end.

In many ways it looked a lot like the bridge of the _Hermes_, in other ways it looked completely different.

In orderly rows, Kilrathi bridge officers sat at computer terminals that seemed to stretch out from the deck like large claws that stretched over the heads of the beasts. On a far wall there was a huge computer display, in front of which two Kilrathi were stood, occasionally tapping controls with their claws.

In the centre of the bridge, there was a pretentious looking chair in which an equally pretentious looking Kilrathi sat. He was dressed in a long flowing robe which seemed completely inappropriate for a battle. If he or anyone else had to move quickly, they wouldn't be helped a long flowing cape which they could easily trip over.

Then again, no one here had seemed overly tense anyway; in fact there was an aura of calm on the bridge. The carrier I was on was by the looks of a display I'd been shown, a good distance from the _H'varkann_ and the _Hermes_.

What I was seeing looked vaguely like the map displays I'd seen time and time again on the _Hermes_. There was no chequered green table however, no red or blue icons. There were only two sets of red dots, one a dark, bloodlike red, the other was a lighter shade. These, by the looks of their position, and their numbers, represented the Confederation fighters.

They were clustered around a series of larger icons of the same colour, these ones actually took the basic shapes of what they were portraying. I could make out two shapes that looked like _Tallahassee_ class cruisers, the _Archangel_ and the _Dominion_. The _Hermes_ herself just looked like a red rectangle.

The Kilrathi ships were clearer. The massive blood red icon representing the _H'varkann_, or the KIS _Vorghath_ apparently; dwarfed the _Hermes, _the _B'hantkara_ and pretty much everything.

"Now ape, watch as your pitiful comrades die." Came a voice from above me. It was the same Kilrathi that had dragged his claw down the side of my face. Along with him, there were two guards flanking me. From one I'd caught a look that suggested he'd gladly claw me to death if it wasn't for orders to the contrary.

The Cats had done a quick patch up job on that, along with the stab wounds in my legs. Basically this involved closing the wounds with something that can only be described as a surgical blowtorch. I didn't feel much better but at least I had stopped bleeding. Standing was still difficult, but it was not the virtually impossible task that it had been.

_We'll see. _I wanted to say; but some part of me that still cared about survival compelled me to stay silent.

More then anything I wanted to be out there. Right now my friends and comrades were moments away from the fight of their lives and I was standing here watching them. If they were to die or triumph, I should rightfully have been with them.

_Every time I saw one of the bright red dots vanish, how would I know it wasn't Fool, or Adish or…_

I closed me eyes and tried to picture instead the _H'varkann_ vanishing from the screen, along with this carrier. Strange isn't it? My best hope was that my own people would kill me.

I forced my eyes open again. The fighters from both sides were now advancing towards each other.

_Good luck my friends. _I said silently, there wasn't much else that I could do.

**Three minutes later**

A Confederation fighter was the first ship to die.

The ship blinked away instantly from the screen as the two swarms of fighters closed in on each other. He'd probably been hit by a missile.

A celebratory howl from the Kilrathi answered this. My fists clenched as I listened to these creatures, then the anger switched to a raw satisfaction as two Kilrathi fighters died.

The howls died out as well, replaced by angry sounding hisses. I half expected to be hit by one of the nerve prods that the both guards were carrying as some sort o vengeance for the two Kilrathi deaths, but it seemed that they weren't paying attention to me any more.

Things became a little harder to follow after that. The two swarms mingled and began to fly in and amongst each other. Dots were continually disappearing, but it was difficult to tell which side they belonged to.

The _Hermes_ and her escorts continued to move forward. It didn't look like missiles; even cap ship missiles would show up on this thing. Looks like I'd just have to wait and see which ship vanished.

It didn't take long for ships to break away from the main engagement. Some of the Confed ships were heading straight for the _H'varkann_. It also looked like wings of what I assume were bombers were heading for the _Hermes_. There were a lot of them.

There were also a lot of Confed ships which moved to intercept them. I soon began to see Kilrathi fighters from these wings vanish from the display. It didn't look like the Kilrathi were guarding their bombers too well. They probably figured that they had enough spares, or maybe they did have escort ships but they were just overconfident or incompetent. Or both.

There was a momentary shimmer of blue around one of the _Tallahassee_ icons. At first nothing seemed to happen, I began to wonder if I had actually seen anything. I had only caught it at the corner of my eye after all.

Then it began to turn round, and then I understood. The ship had taken a torpedo hit, possibly two in a sensitive area. It was probably turning round because it was two damaged to stay in the fight.

At least It was still alive.

I watched the icon for a while, the Kilrathi gave chase, but only with three ships, they seemed to be concentrating on the ships that stuck around to fight.

Two Confed fighters peeled back and started moving back towards the damaged cruiser and her pursuers.

One Kilrathi ship died early on, probably they took a missile up the arse. Another I assume was taken out by flak fire from the cruiser.

The third then peeled back and began to head towards one of the Confederation fighters. I watched as the two ships closed on each other. When the two dots overlapped, I assumed that they were passing each other.

And then they both blinked out of existence.

I blinked and stared at the now empty space for a few moments. Then fresh anger emerged as I realised that I'd just witnessed a mutually fatal collision. Whether it was deliberate or accidental I didn't know, but that was still one Confederation pilot dead.

I searched the display, trying to find something else to focus on. The Kilrathi had now resorted to low pitched growls of appreciation or anger, loud roaring I'm guessing could prove a distraction to the bridge crew.

It was about this time that I noticed four Confederation fighters that were heading towards the _B'hantkara_. Fighters which were coming to kill me.

I tried to keep the panic locked down. This was what I had been waiting for. It was either this or be clawed to death in some fucking Kilrathi jungle.

_Its your time, _I said myself, as if it would somehow be reassuring. It wasn't.

And then one of the Confed ships disappeared.

They were all pretty close to the _H'varkann_, and the wing of ships heading their way were still a good distance out. I'd guess the pilot, whoever they were, had been taken out by flak fire.

It was getting harder and harder to keep my panic at bay. Part of me wanted to end it here; it was all I could hope for. Another part of me, quite simply, didn't want to die; and there wasn't much I could do about that.

Through the fear, something on the display caught my eye. There was an icon emerging from the _H'varkann_ that was unlike any I'd seen previously. It was small; the size of a fighter, but instead of a red dot, there was a symbol instead, like the symbol of the empire, but different.

Whatever it was, it was following the two ships heading my way. It looked like it was going to come at them from the side.

They didn't see it. Why couldn't they see it? I was almost tempted to scream at their icons on the display. It wouldn't help, but it was hard to sit here and wait for them to find out the hard way that, something, was chasing them.

There was an increased background growl from the Kilrathi bridge officers, it seemed that the terran fighters were beginning to get a little too close for comfort.

The enemy fighter, it had to be a fighter, was closing on them now, and after a few seconds, there was one less incoming friendly fighter.

One of the guards gave a pleased grunt. If it wasn't for the added weight of the heavy manacles around my arms, I would have hit him.

I wanted to kill them all. I wanted to rip them open and pile their guts on the floor.

_That's probably what will happen to you Ryuku._

I closed my eyes again, took a number of breaths and tried to banish the storm of rage and fear from within, and returned my attention to the screen.

It seemed that one of the Confed ships had stayed to engage the fighter whilst the other one continued towards us. I sighed, the , one fighter, even a Longbow probably wouldn't meet with much success, that fighter could have been an Arrow for all I knew. Although that seemed doubtful.

Muffled bangs sounded suddenly, I turned my head, saw nothing new on the bridge and turned it back to the display. It took me a few moments to realise I was listening to flak fire. I'd never expected to be listening to it from inside a Kilrathi ship, and I doubted I'd ever hear it again.

In any other situation, that would probably have been good news.

The one who'd stayed to battle the Kilrathi didn't seem to be doing too well. His ship hardly seemed to move at all, whereas the Kilrathi's dodged and weaved skilfully, and quickly, around its target.

And soon there was only one ship left.

The Kilrathi newcomer was moving towards the last ship, but quick as he was, he wasn't quick enough.

A loud, low pitched whooping noise sounded on the bridge. I jumped at the sound, no one seemed to notice however. There was now a suitable sense of urgency on the bridge of this ship, and it didn't take me long to figure out why.

Incoming torpedoes.

My eyes snapped to the display, I tried to make them out but could see nothing except the Confed ship speeding away from the carrier.

Deciding to abandon the impression of bored detachment I'd been trying for since they dragged me out of the interrogation room, I hurled myself to the floor and waited for the torpedoes to impact. (Or for the Kilrathi to shoot them down.)

It didn't take me long to find out which one it was.

**Twenty minutes later**

I woke up to the sound of a pained roar from a Kilrathi who I would later see had a piece of the ceiling buried in his entrails.

Sluggishly, and then hastily once I remembered where I was, I regained consciousness. I tried to take in a few breaths and instantly found myself wheezing out smoke that was pouring into what was left of the bridge from somewhere above me. I was lying face down, something had fallen on me, but it didn't seem to have done any damage to anything.

I couldn't get my still-restrained arms behind my back to push it off, so instead I tried to stand up, hoping to shirk it off as I did so.

It almost pushed me back down to the floor, but I eventually managed to get out from under it. When I was finally standing, I realised that I'd been sleeping underneath a Kilrathi arm. It had belonged to one of the guards who had watched the battle unfold with me on the display. Now he had several large pieces of shrapnel buried in his back.

I looked around hastily. The bridge was a mess, Kilrathi corpses were draped over, or under charred remnants of their work stations, fires had broken out in three places.

It was pure luck that I'd survived, there was fallen shrapnel all around where I'd been lying, and some debris had landed on my flight suit, but nothing large, hot or sharp enough to do any damage. It seemed the Kilrathi had taken all of those bits for themselves.

The Kilrathi was still screaming.

I looked around and soon found that the origin of the noise came from my former interrogator. I can't begin to tell you how satisfying it was to see him suffering.

I left him to it for the moment. Looking around instead for, well, something which could dictate my next course of action.

I noticed that one of the guards was still clinging to his firearm with his dead fingers.

I kicked the corpse a few times, making sure it really was dead, when I was reasonably satisfied that it was, I worked at picking the gun out of his hands.

It was a bulky thing which seemed to weigh as much as I did. It was all I could do to drag it across the floor. This was made doubly difficult with my hands still restrained.

Nevertheless, I still managed to line the gun up with the sole surviving Kilrathi, (I hoped he was the only survivor anyway,) and blast a hole through the side of his chest. The screaming cut out abruptly.

For a while I just stared at the dead beast before me and enjoyed the similar grim satisfaction at his demise that I had at his suffering. Then I started wheezing again and I decided that getting out of the bridge would be a better idea.

Where I was going to go was something I couldn't bring myself to consider. After all, when you're injured and stranded on a Kilrathi carrier which may or may not be a few minutes away from exploding, not a great many opportunities for continued survival exist do they?

**To be continued.**


	21. Seige

**Thanks again Bien Canonizado for your review. A fair few of your suggestions i do actually have planned for later chapters. You should see a few of them soon enough. Also i should still have plenty of time to update at university, for the moment at least. **

**Chapter 21: Siege**

**Razor's perspective**

From outside, Oasis station looked as if it may very well have been abandoned many years ago. In the murky sunlight which was largely hidden behind the ghastly orange clouds, the typically shiny dura-steel shell looked aged beyond its years. The constant battering that it had taken from sandstorms had also gone a long way to make the place look a derelict hulk.

In reality however, the base at this time was undoubtedly as lively as it had ever been. As I was sprinting across the platform to my fighter which was waiting on a nearby landing platform; I noticed three laser tanks moving into a position to cover the launch pads. I'm not sure what class they were, but they looked modern.

I just hoped that they didn't contain Retros.

I couldn't see any Kilrathi ships, not that I especially wanted to look for them outside of my cockpit. I'm guessing that they were still a little way out. Maybe they were still descending into the atmosphere.

A deafening whine drowned out the sound of rushing wind as two Sabres took to the sky. My own fighter was only a few meters away. The ladder was already in place and the guy holding it was looking at me with a face that showed an utter lack of hope. He expected to die here. Miserable bastard.

I ascended the ladder; it took me longer to get up the thing in the wind. When I finally stepped into my cockpit and closed the canopy, the resulting stillness in the air felt surprisingly comfortable. I felt almost at home in this thing.

The ships systems soon started coming to life around me. My eyes fixed on the radar as it lay featureless before me. When it finally came to life with a short electronic hiss, I noticed nothing except for a large cluster of light blue dots with a handful of darker blue ones circling them.

My engines finally came online. I hit my ventral manoeuvring thrusters and pushed myself off of the ground, then I hit full acceleration, pulled up and climbed into the air.

"Oasis Station, this is Fire Wings leader. What are we looking at?"

It took them a while to respond. For an instant I wondered whether the Retros had gotten through to the bridge already, then a face, a Confederation face, appeared on my com screen.

"Fire wings leader, this is Oasis, we count fifteen Kilrathi fighters, all Vakoths by the look of it. We're also picking up two bigger contacts, they look like troop transports."

"That's it?" I'd half been expecting him to tell me there was a _H'varkann_ in orbit, along with all its escort ships and at least three hundred fighters.

"That's it ma'am. There's nothing else on sensors."

"Understood."

"I'm uploading a nav point to all your onboard computers, that's where the cats are coming in from."

The face vanished from the com screen at pretty much the same time as the nav point appeared on my radar.

This didn't look right. If it weren't for the troop transports, I'd assume that the Kilrathi had just sent an advanced wave past the _Hermes_ to weaken the base's defences. On their own however, they would be hard pressed to soften us up enough to clear a path for the troop transports. Unless…

Realisation hit me like a punch in the gut.

Unless they had inside help, which presumably took the form of the Retros. They'd waited until some agreed time to attack and thereby cause chaos at the base. They'd probably try to sabotage systems from within; maybe even turn some of the base's weapons on us.

Of course they had the marines to contend with, and after the show in the bar, I doubted that the Retros would fare too well. Maybe the Kilrathi knew that too. Perhaps they figured that they could use apes as cannon fodder to make their lives easier.

The first of the Kilrathi contacts appeared on the radar and I abruptly stopped caring. My job was to stop them getting through and that was what I had to focus on. It wasn't like I could be much help anywhere else after all.

"All fighters, break and attack. Try and lead them to the base's defenders, but don't let them get a shot in."

A few people responded with 'aye ma'am's' and so on. Most people were too busy picking targets and readying missiles.

I'd assumed command of the base's remaining fighter detachments shortly after arriving. The reason for this simply being greater experience. The previous wing commander hadn't been especially happy about this, but hadn't made an issue of it.

As it stood, we had eighteen ships. Seven Hellcats, (as many as the base could accommodate), and eleven Sabres. The Hellcats were basically replacements for the handful of modern day fighters the base had that the Retros had stolen. The Kilrathi Vaktoth outclasses both kinds of fighter, and there was no shortage of the, which didn't do much for our confidence. Add to that the lack of experience in the majority of the Sabre pilots, tank and turret crews. This was not going to be easy.

**Two minutes later**

"Watch it Whisky 3, you've got one on your tail."

"I can see that!" Came back the irritated response from the pilot. "Lancer, focus on one of his wings, see if you can't…"

I closed the channel. They were taking too long. The Vaktoth would annihilate the Sabre before the gunner's brain told his fingers to press down on the fire button.

I abandoned my target and peeled off to the left, lining myself up behind the Vaktoth. It was a long way out, and the sun made it difficult to see, but it was still in missile range.

I locked on a friend or foe missile and fired.

The missile struck the Vaktoth in the midsection, I think, but didn't break through the shields. The enemy seemed to sway a little under the impact but soon recovered.

"That was a missile by the way." I said over the radio, trying to force scathing pomposity into my voice, "I'm guessing you're too stupid to figure that out yourself."

A snarl was my answer, and the Vaktoth soon turned towards me. I kept moving towards him for a few seconds then swung around and ran back the way I'd came.

My rear shields started taking hits. I pulled right and downwards slightly; trying to keep my ship in his forward display. I needed him to focus on me.

And that he did, right up until two missiles from the station sailed past my fighter and tore his ship to pieces.

The vapour trails that the missiles had left in their wake hung in the air for as long as I could see. On closer inspection they were just two among dozens. There were still a fair few Kilrathi ships around so I was guessing they weren't all faring with as much luck.

Blue streaks of light shot out from one point below me, they seemed to be chasing a Vaktoth across the sky, the Kilrathi pilot seemed to be dancing around them. Whether this was just a coincidently picturesque series of evasive manoeuvres or just him showing off I couldn't tell, and didn't really care.

I switched through contacts until I got his ship, then I closed on him and fired with full guns.

He had a harder time evading two sets of gunfire. Not long after I landed my first hits, the laser fire from the tank below finally found its way onto his shields.

The cat took his ship into a dive to the floor, I almost followed him, then I realised that I wasn't in space and would probably plunge nose first into the dirt if I tried. Damn planetary engagements.

His ship was hard to make out next to the dusty ground. I tried to track the fighter as best as I could and let off a few shots at the green crosshair on my screen. Only a few hit home. The cat didn't seem to care.

After a few seconds, he fired. The fire from the tank died out a few seconds later and I noticed an explosion next to the base, followed by another a few meters behind it, and then another.

Those tanks each carry a crew of four.

I accelerated again and unleashed another string of gunfire. Soon after gunfire shot out from three different points on the surface, all pointing at the Vaktoth. It seemed some of the tank crews had witnessed the destruction of their comrades.

One of the tanks seemed to land a hit on the fighter's engines. The enemy ship slowed at first, then began to descend. The bow of the craft tilted towards the sky, suggesting that the pilot was attempting to pull up.

Fire from the tanks ceased, they seemed content that the creature was doomed. I wanted to make sure.

My gunfire ripped one of the enemy's wings off shortly before his ship smashed into the floor and vanished in a cloud of fire and scorched surface dust.

I called up a third Vaktoth and swung my ship around to face it. When I saw it, I also saw a flaming wreck that had once been a Sabre break apart in front of it.

That was the fifth Sabre we'd lost, at the very least.

I lined up my targeting crosshairs on the screen and fired.

The Kilrathi didn't seem too worried about evading my fire. Instead all he did was turn around and fire at me. I didn't fancy a pounding match with a heavy fighter which I had no chance of winning so instead I afterburned past it.

I didn't realise that the station's com officer had reappeared on my screen until he started talking. He sounded worried.

"Attention all fighters. The tank in the north east quadrant is almost gone; and our turrets and missile launchers in that region have taken hits. Cover that area! We can't give the cat transports a safe place to set down!"

"You heard him people." I said to the other pilots, "Fire Wings 5, 6 and 7; keep trying to draw them towards more defended areas. All other ships, cover the northern quadrant."

"Understood."

"Yes ma'am."

"Holy shit!" Screamed a dying Hellcat pilot, "I'm breaking up! I'm…"

_Damn it!_

My previous target had gone elsewhere, probably a more tempting target had shown itself.I caught sight of two Vaktoth which were following a Hellcat towards the north east quadrant, and taking the occasional pot shot at him as they did so.

I prepped one of the three leech missiles that I had and placed one finger over the afterburner controls. I'd have to afterburn in straight behind the bastard and fire the missile into his rear shields; leech missiles, as we'd discovered in this battle, were easy things for the Cats to avoid.

The lock chime eventually sounded. I hit the afterburners and charged at the Vaktoth. The Cat sent a few shots at me from its rear turret, but didn't make any attempt to evade. Presumably he thought he could afford to stay put for a while.

I launched the missile and was rewarded with the briefest hint of a blue flash as the warhead impacted on the beastie's shields. I came about and afterburned away from fighter.

For a while nothing happened, except for the Vaktoth deciding to chase me. Enemy gunshots sailed past my fighter; others sailed into my rear shields. I pulled upwards and tried to roll back and lose him that way. He stayed with me, and my lock light soon came to life.

I released three decoys and dived for the surface. The missile smashed into one of the decoys, but the cat still stuck with me. I didn't think that this leech was going to do anything.

As if on answer to my thoughts, the Vaktoth began to fall away. His speed decreased steadily, and then his altitude began to drop. Losing your engines is an especially bad thing to happen in a planetary atmosphere when you have gravity to contend with.

"A coward's tactic!" Hissed the Kilrathi as his ship plunged into the dirt, "There is no honour!"

"Yeah, but which one of us is dead?"

He didn't answer.

"Attention all fighters," The station's com officer said again, there was no visual with the face this time for some reason; "We're picking up new contacts. Looks like; ah shit! They're Vaktoths, another fifteen of them. They'll be entering the atmosphere in three minutes."

My heart sank, and for a while it was all I could do to fly in a straight line while I absorbed this news. There was no way we were going to be able to hold off a second wave. Most of our ships which weren't charred wrecks on the ground were in pretty bad shape. Two Sabres and a Hellcat had been forced to withdraw already. The ground defences could still

"Looks like the first wave ships are retreating to join their litter mates." Said one of the Sabre pilots, her voice echoing the sudden hopelessness our situation had taken.

How many fighters did the Kilrathi have to throw at us? There were more fighters in this single engagement then there were in a single squadron onboard the _Hermes_.

"Alright," I said at last, "Oasis station, how long till the cats get here? Do we have time to land and rearm?"

"Negative, enemy eta is…" The voice broke off as something on one of the displays caught his attention. "What the… I'm picking up new contacts in orbit, directly behind the Kilrathi. They're, wait. Confirming…"

The wait was maddening. We didn't know what the hell he was going to report, and I was little short of certain that it would be something unpleasant like another 15 Vaktoths, still, the uncertainty bread hope, and it was the hope which was maddening.

"It's a _Concordia_ class fleet carrier, plus escort ships. I'm also reading at least twenty fighters heading our way, but I can't make out what they are yet." With that he closed the com channel.

For a long time I was too amazed and far too relieved to think. Then for one brief moment I thought it was the _Hermes,_ returning in triumph from the engagement with the _H'varkann_ to assist us. Then the com screen crackled and a blurred face appeared on the screen, and I was to be proved incorrect. Atmospheric turbulence was doubtlessly responsible for the poor signal quality.

"…To _static _you. Repeat this _static_ the TCS _Invincible_, we are launching fighters to assist you." The transmission now seemed to have cleared up slightly, and I was able to make out the features of a youngish looking communications officer. She looked almost apprehensive. "We are also launching marine shuttles to bolster your station's defence force. Be advised, one of our marines is a Kilrathi. Inform your people of this, we don't want any friendly fire situations."

_A Kilrathi?_

And then it clicked, the Invincible was the ship which Z'ratmak had been assigned to. I grinned and felt a short stab of grim humour at the thought of what would happen to any Retros who came across him.

"Stay sharp pilots." Said the station's com officer, suddenly reappearing on the screen, "The Cats are still going to get here before our reinforcements."

**To be continued.**


	22. Prey

**Chapter 22: Prey**

**Z'ratmak's perspective**

"Attention marines, Oasis station reports a large Retro incursion. At least 60 hostiles are engaging Confederation marines in five areas of the base. The heaviest fighting is around the station's primary fusion reactor and command centre. The spine snapper unit is to assist marines at the reactor. The Shuriken unit is to assist in holding the command centre. Upon landing you will meet with marines who will lead you to the assigned areas."

I replayed the announcement in my head in puzzlement. Attacking the command centre suggested that these terran Retros sought to take the station for themselves, but there were far too few of them to accomplish such a task. Perhaps they sought only to gain brief access to the stations weapons so as to turn them on the Confederation fighters. Yet this did not explain their attempting to seize the fusion reactor.

From what I understand of these Retro creatures, their reasoning is not typical of terrans. In fact it seems almost as if reasoning does not factor into their being. They seek the destruction of all technology, believing that it shall bring purity to their species or some other elevated state of being. And to achieve this end they make use of that they claim to despise. Their hypocrisy is plain for all but themselves to see it seems.

Furthermore, if somehow they reached this insane goal of theirs, all they would usher in is an effortless victory for the Empire of Kilrah.

But I digress. Seizing the station's reactor suggested that the pirates sought instead to destroy the station. This seemed doubtful considering the presence of Kilrathi troopships. It seemed clear that both sides were working together, at least for the moment. The Retros would be slain by the Empire in an instant once their usefulness reached its end.

Perhaps they intended to seize the reactor in case they failed in their attempt to seize the commander centre. In case they failed they may seek to destroy the 'technological abomination' or what it is they would call it.

Truthfully I did not know what their plan was, but that was unimportant. They were the enemy, and they were to be slaughtered before they could do any substantial damage.

"Touchdown in three minutes."

"Prepare your weapons." I said, and watched as my troops readied themselves. Their faces bore the typical nervousness that preceded our engagements. However today there was something different about their expressions. There too was the anger. Not one of my troops had gone through this war without losing one or more of their hrai to the Empire Corporal Olivia 'Hailstorm' Johnson had lost her son, Corporal Harvey 'Soulless' Hawling had lost his parents and three sisters at Goddard. There were fifteen soldiers at my command. None had remained free from losing one of their H'rai.

I was fortunate in comparison. I was the only member of my line who served in battle, none of my H'rai had been lost in this war, save for my father who had perished in the battle of Vikyah. I did not know him too well, being only a cub when he left to rejoin the Imperial fleet, and I never saw or heard from him again. I do know that he was a loyal subject of the Emperor to the end. A loyal subject to the accursed wretch who had plunged both the Kilrathi and the humans into this ridiculous war.

Forgive me; I am drifting from the point. The anger on the faces of my soldiers I noticed this time was different from what I saw during typical engagements. This time there was disgust mingled with the anger. The disgust any true warrior reserved for traitors. The same that I imagine many Kilrathi would reserve for me. But I am no traitor to my people. I fight to save them, not to destroy them.

These churnah terrans however are traitors in the truest sense of the word. They fight to bring regression and annihilation to their species. They are fools, and truly deserving of contempt and death.

"Touchdown in one minute."

An uneasy shuffling ensued as we prepared ourselves for battle. Compared to some of our previous engagements, the victory at Morpheus for example, this was nothing. Still, it seems to take less for terrans to tremble. Nevertheless, the warrior's spirit is alive in the warriors under my command; they need only glorious combat to bring it to the surface.

It had been a long time since I turned my claws on a terran. Part of me could not help but feel glad for this change. The simple truth is that it is easier to kill a creature when they are not your own kind.

"All hands, brace for landing."

I grasped the support bar that was barely larger then my paw, the others did the same. A sharp jolt signified our touching down. As the hatch began to slide open, I stood, my marines did the same shortly afterwards.

"Do not allow yourselves to become complacent." I warned, "Follow me."

With our weapons pointed downwards, we quickly filed out of the shuttle. Only to be met with the sounds and sights of battle. From within the shuttle it had felt quiet and peaceful. We had, rather surprisingly, passed unnoticed and unmolested through the battle. This was puzzling. Marine shuttles are always tempting targets, especially during situations such as these.

Soon we noticed a terran marine moving towards us. When she noticed me she acted as many terrans tended to. A brief moment of shock and then a twitch in her arms as her instincts told her to shoot me. I growled in irritation as she realised I was not the enemy, and then moved closer towards us.

"Spine snappers?" In spine of the deafening sounds of battle around us, there was still the familiar scorn in the voice, no doubt because of my presence. I was growing tired of hearing it.

"Yes." I growled in response.

"This way."

She turned about and began to sprint back towards the base. Soon we followed and were moving to meet our enemy.

Overhead, the battle still progressed. It was hard to make out anything of the fighters, save for the occasional explosion. They were moving too fast to make sighting them easy, and the glare from the surface laser fire made visibility even more difficult. But this was unimportant. We were not here for sightseeing. We were here to hunt.

**Seven minutes later**

In the distance I could hear the fire from human blasters, and also raised voices, though I could not tell what they were saying.

"This is a minor engagement." Said the marine who'd met upon touchdown, "I read three Retros engaging four marines ten meters up ahead. They're trying to sneak into the core room through the back door. The main engagement is up ahead."

"I understand. Bates, Valdez, Turcotte, Hawling."

From behind me, the marines stepped forward.

"Sir."

"You will accompany me, the rest of you stay here and hold this position."

"Aye sir."

Slowly we advanced, as we turned the first corner, we caught sight of the three attackers. They were firing into the depths of a corridor and using the walls on either side for cover. Blaster fire streaked out from the corridor form the Confederation marines on the other side.

There was no cover for me or my troops to make use of. We would have to wait until we were nearer, then pounce.

I suppressed the urge to utter a snarl of anticipation.

I raised my arm and twitched my paw forward slightly, signalling for us to advance quietly.

The Retros were too focused on their engagement to notice us at first. We closed to within roughly six meters and readied our weapons.

"Fire!" I growled, loud enough for the enemy heads to turn our way.

Our shots ripped through the terran's backs. I did not surpress my triumphant snarl this time.

"Who's there?" Came a shout from down the hall.

I shot a glance to Corporal Bates. He nodded and moved closer to the corridor. It was easier for humans to introduce our unit to other humans rather then for me to do it. I tended to be met with scepticism and disbelief. It had almost gotten me killed on two occasions.

"We're a marine detachment from the TCS _Invincible_." Bates shouted, "We're here to help." He then uttered the detachment's serial number, further authentication of our identity.

There was some murmuring from the corridor.

"Good to see you." Came the reply, "Follow us past the core, we'll get to the rest of the Retros quicker that way."

"Got it. Be advised, our commander is a Kilrathi defector, don't shoot him."

"A Kilrathi. Are you serious? Let's have a look at him."

I rolled my eyes; it was a habit I had picked up from Torrent when I was still serving aboard the _Hermes_. This was a waste of time, yet it was unavoidable. Rushing could lead to my death here.

I stepped into view of the marines; some moved towards me, others viewed from a distance. Those that I could see viewed me as if I were rogue Trathra beast that had snuck into their home.

"Well that's the damnest thing I've ever seen." Said one of the marines finally, a Colonel like myself by the looks of things. "Jamie, Ice pick, Wren, Otis. You stay here and cover this area. Everyone else, let's get moving."

I sent Valdez back to summon the rest of the unit; I doubted they would have much trouble following the sounds of gunfire in the distance. The rest of us ran through a doorway and past the bulbous form of the station's primary power core. The device hung from the ceiling like a round stalagmite. It would take only a single grenade thrown close enough to the core to destroy the station, or at the very least disable it, depending on the effectiveness of the base's safeties.

We passed through this room; the technicians dotted around it seemed to trip over themselves attempting to keep out of our path.

"Keep low," Said the other Colonel as we approached another door. The sound of gunfire was heavier here. "Unless you want to get your head shot off."

I lowered myself, doubting that it would help much. Even when slouched I was still about as tall as a short, standing human.

The door hissed open and I immediately threw myself to the floor. It was an action dictated by instinct more then anything. I was not sure whether I'd find waiting Confederation marines on the other side of that hatch of whether I'd find an enemy pointing a gun at me.

The latter alternative was the truth. A stream of blue light tore through the air past my left shoulder; impacting on the face of one of the base's marines. She fell backwards and screamed as the weapon discharge devoured the flesh from her skull.

Three marines as well as myself returned fire in the direction of the Retro. The creature tried to run but was cut down before he could take his first step.

Beyond his corpse there were pitched battles that spread up the wide corridor. It seemed that the majority of the marines were holding back near to the core room, perhaps feigning weakness or defeat; allowing the Retros to venture towards them before cutting them down.

The terran Colonel moved forward and we followed. Along two corridors were lines of marines, those that were not wounded and being seen to by field medics were waiting in a line for an opening to form in the firing line. There was one man who was dragging away a body of his fallen comrade.

I signalled for my own men to form up along the wall on my right. I placed myself close to the line of fire. I would not wait in line for battle.

"It's not as bad as it looks." Shouted a youngish looking human as I came up beside her, she either didn't notice that she was that she was speaking to a Kilrathi or didn't care. "We've taken out at least ten of them already. They shouldn't be too much of a problem. Can't say the same if the cats land though."

She was right. If the Kilrathi broke through, it would be with at least one thousand troops. There was barely a quarter of that number of Confederation marines here. We would all be slaughtered if the Empire landed troops here.

I heard a sound from down the hall, it sounded faintly like a roar I had heard Kilrathi hunters use in my youth, but it was a feeble sound by comparison.

"Another load of martyrs." Said the second Colonel, I never did learn his name, "Stun only. We think those guys are strapped to explosives tied to dead man switches."

I did not know what a 'dead man switch' was, but I recognised the words stun only. Not that I was happy to hear them.

The pathetic human battle cry grew closer. I waited, moving closer to the opening in the pathways. The sound grew louder still; I heard the clanging of footsteps on the metal deck.

_Wait_, _wait, Now!_

I moved swiftly forward, judging the timing by the sound of the terran's wailing. My arm shot forward at the same time as the first of them came into view. Grasping the terran by the neck, I swung him into the wall behind me.

The swing was not powerful enough to crack the skull, but the creature fell to the floor, the consciousness knocked from him.

A second Retro was brought down by at least five different stun batons.

One of the marines looked at me with a facial expression that might have been admiration. At the same time, the rest of my soldiers arrived from the core room. On my order they formed up along the wall with the rest of the 'Spine Snappers'.

Fire from the end of the corridor seemed to have come to a halt. Either we had crushed the Retros, or they simply did not wish to shoot their own suicide bombers.

"Runner," Uttered the human Colonel, "Send 'em a consolation prize."

One of the station's marines removed a concussion grenade from his belt and moved to the edge of the corridor. She removed the safety from the top of the explosive and prepared to throw it.

And then the deafening sound of an explosion preceded the sudden shaking of the station. Many of the marines, and also the grenade were cast to the floor.

Either a torpedo had struck the station, or a fighter had collided with a section very close to that in which we stood.

For a few moments there was chaos. Those that were not unconscious were hastily trying to stand and prepare themselves once more for battle.

I did not notice the grenade at first; I was busy lifting a number of my own stunned warriors from the floor.

It was Corporal Blackman who in fact noticed the explosive. He could not speak at the time; I believe Sergeant Tilak had inadvertently struck him in the throat as fell. He pointed desperately at the grenade as I pulled him from the deck. At the same time he parted with a pained wheeze and clutched at his throat with his other hand.

I turned and caught sight of the device. It glowed slightly amongst the darkness of the corridor, signifying that it was charging.

With barely any prior thought I charged at the explosive and grasped it. Its detonation would certainly slay all of us, and allow the Retros to seize the core. Assuming there were any of them left.

I cast the explosive down the open corridor, I watched as it vanished into the darkness. (The Retros had destroyed the lighting in that section to conceal themselves.)

The grenade exploded only a few seconds after it had left my paw. I had no time to get out of its way. Flames clawed across the distance both in and away from my direction.

I do not think the blast dispatched any Retros; however the flames did meet with myself.

My armour, though heated protected me from the majority of the blast. Yet I still could not help but snarl in sudden pain.

I soon realised that the area in which I stood was exposed. I moved myself back behind the cover of the wall on the right.

"Are you alright sir?"

"I am fine."

"Hey fur… I mean Colonel." This was from the terran Colonel. I decided to ignore the 'furball' jest this once. "Nice work."

There was some faint murmuring of approval, mostly from my own troops; from others there were spits and signs of disgust at their commander's praise.

"There may still be Retros nearby." I said, we had wasted too much time already, "Blackman, Tilak, Bates, Green and Norwood. You will accompany me."

"Singer, Spike, you and I will go with them. The rest of you, stay here and hold this position."

We advanced cautiously through the corridor, keeping low as we moved and passing a number of Retro corpses. Many of which looked as if they'd been hit with at least three gunshot wounds.

I did not believe that there would be any remaining Retros, if there were any survivors then, (assuming they hadn't fled,) they would have kept fighting.

I soon found that I was wrong however. At the end of the corridor we came to a section not unlike the one we had been using for cover. In it we found a single Retro. He looked barely old enough to be an academy cadet. He wore the uniform of one of the base's personnel; lying next to him was a brown hood. I'd seen these on some of the Retros that we'd already slain.

When he saw me, he jumped visibly.

"My Lord," He wailed at me, "Please forgive me! We tried our best but there were too many of them. We need help from your warriors if this battle is to be…"

It was then it seems that he realised I was not of the Empire.

His face took on a deeper look of horror. He began to raise his weapon towards us, he was shaking so bad it seemed possible that he would drop it. I grasped his firearm and pointed it upwards towards the ceiling. He tried to prise it from my grasp but that would be impossible for any terran.

With my other paw, I unsheathed my claws and prepared to strike at the throat of this creature.

"Wait a minute." This was the Colonel again, there seemed to be pity in his voice, or something not to dissimilar. "We need to take a few of them alive; we'll need to get some information out of 'em."

I think it was possibly the young age of the terran which invoked this commander's sympathy. Maybe he reminded him of his own son. In any case, he did not seem to want the snivelling creature to die.

I snorted in disappointment and instead of clawing the human's throat out, I landed a quick blow to the back of his head. He fell unconscious in an instant.

"Alright, Spike, Singer, get him to the brig. On your way inform the command centre that the reactor is secure and we are searching for stray Retros in the surrounding area."

**To be continued**


	23. David

**Chapter 23: David**

**Fool's perspective**

"Oh my God!"

Attacking the carrier had had the secondary effect of placing me at the perfect angle and distance to witness the destruction of the _H'varkann_.

Its engines were gone, nothing but dissipating flames were left where they had been. Explosions were breaking out all over the hull which was by the way, now in two pieces. One of the claw-like outcroppings on the bow had been ripped clean off, and the docking bay was vomiting flames like an enraged dragon.

A more beautiful sight I have not seen.

As what normally happens when a large cap ship dies, there was a period of staring. There was for me and Salamander at least. Ordinarily when this happens we, (human and Kilrathi alike) sit back, watch as the cat cap ship burns for two and a half seconds and then the battle started up again.

With no one around us, we saw no harm in dawdling. I could only imagine what the Kilrathi must be thinking now. Their colossal, hitherto indestructible dreadnought had just been taken out by a measly, run of the mill Confederation fleet carrier. Humiliating isn't the word for it.

And it was about to get a lot worse for them. The _Bhantkara_ lay only 20 kilometres from us. The tactical display confirmed that the ship had taken a pasting. Looks like the fighters from Adjudicator squadron had managed to get a few shots off before they were taken out.

One well aimed torpedo would be all it took.

Salamander's fighter overtook mine and hovered in front of my screen for a while, he then began to accelerate towards the carrier. Remembering that I'd reduced my speed to take in the view, I pushed the speed control and shot off after him.

Either they hadn't noticed us, had run out of fighters or had had their docking bay smashed up so badly that they couldn't launch. Either way this made our job easier.

"Hang on." Salamander said, there were still traces of triumph in his voice, but they were fading, back to work. "I'm picking up what looks like a Confederation ejection pod. We'll pick it up before we head on to the carrier."

"Understood."

Trent had ordered that all Thunderbolts and Longbows be retrofitted to carry tractor beams when word reached his ear of the _H'varkann_. Basically the hope was that we'd be able to pluck a pilot from the fray if we fell upon one. In a battle like this one, the potential to get whacked by a stray shot was a high one. There was enough space in a Thunderbolt to fit a single pod, barely.

The pod appeared on my radar, a single purple dot hanging uncomfortably close to the carrier. It was kind of encouraging really. The fact that the Cats hadn't used the pilot for target practice suggested that they may not be able to fire, at least in that section. Or maybe they just hadn't seen him.

As I stared at the dot on my radar, I noticed two red dots appear behind me.

"Shit, major we've got…"

My ship shuddered under the impact of volleys of gunfire from two Strakha.

"I see 'em." Salamander responded, "I'm almost at the pod. Cover me. Then I'll give you a hand."

"Aye sir."

The Strakha were woefully outgunned and they knew it. But the Kilrathi code of honour dictates that they engage. Either that or they were just so royally pissed off with us that they'd attack anything they could see.

I swung my ship around and returned fire. My shots tore into the forward shields of the enemy on my left. Before too long his ship was reduced to an exploding wreck.

The second Strakha re-cloaked. I fired where it had been and where it might have been moving, but I didn't hit anything. It looked like hew was heading towards Salamander.

"One beastie down sir." I said over the com, "But the second one cloaked, looks like he's heading your way. He might be trying to…"

"To hit the ejection pod." Salamander finished for me, "I know. Its about the only thing he could take out. I've about to activate the tractor beam. Get over here and shoot at anything that might be a Kilrathi fighter."

"Yes sir."

You might think that protecting the carrier would be high on the Kilrathi's list of priorities considering that it was the only cap ship that they had left. However in the state of mind that they had to be in, (humiliated, utterly vengeful etc.) They might be more concerned with making the hairless beasts pay. Besides, the carrier wasn't going anywhere. Why take chances?

I hit my afterburners and chased after Salamander. I couldn't make out any visible distortions that might indicate the presence of a cloaked Kilrathi fighter. I'd have to wait for him to de-cloak.

"Engaging tractor beam now."

I came to a halt. From here I had a good line of sight and would be able to get a quick missile lock if the Kilrathi showed himself.

A thin trail of blue shot out from Salamander's fighter and impacted on an invisible point not far from his ship.

My eyes sprung to my radar, I waited for the red dot to appear. And it did, alongside two others, directly behind me.

_Oh shit!_

Almost without thinking, I jettisoned a decoy. Razor had taught me this, it gave me a slightly higher chance of survival if the cats decide to launch a missile. I jettisoned two more after it.

Distantly I thought that the Kilrathi probably were more concerned about their carrier after all.

Three rounds of Kilrathi gunfire tore into my already damaged shields and tore them away like a sheet of paper. I heard the unpleasant sound of armour being ripped from around my engines as I pulled my ship to the right and hit the afterburners.

"I have him." Salamander said over the com, "I'm on my way to assist kid. Be there in a second."

One of the Strakha peeled off and headed toward Salamanders position. I watched the red dot on the radar move off briefly before pulling back on the flight stick.

The Strakha followed me; they wee clinging very close to the rear end of my fighter. Ordinarily I'd stop, come about and smash them to bits, if I tried that now, they'd probably crash into me, which was probably what they were trying to do. Redeem themselves with honour by taking an enemy to the grave with them. I wondered how many of the others had suicidal felines to worry about.

My rear turret was out of action; and my damage control display told me that it wasn't going to be repaired until a technician or two from the Hermes had ripped it off of the ship and replaced it for a working one. (Well, not in so many words but… ah forget it.)

Another round of gunshots ripped past me, some scraping my dorsal shields.

"Major, I need a ha…"

As if on cue, gunfire from Salamander's Thunderbolt ripped the closest Strakha to shreds. With that one out of the way, there was nothing to stop me from coming about and unloading cannon volleys in his face.

The first shots were rushed and passed underneath the fighter. I lined the target up in my sights as I fired and…

"This death." There was a pause as the Cat hissed in sudden pain, "Is deserved."

There was none of the rage and bloodthirsty desire for vengeance that I'd expected in his voice. There was only shame. From this point I stopped pretending that I knew what the Cats were feeling or how they'd act.

"Nice job kid." Salamander said, "Let's finish what we started. You get inside the carrier and try and blast them from the inside, I'll do the same from the outside and try and cover you on your way in, assuming their flak turrets still work. Assume that they do. We'll approach from the damaged side."

"Yes sir, and don't call me kid."

"Sure thing urchin, whatever you say."

I suppressed a scowl and was about to reply when I saw Salamander's fighter pass overhead. I hit my afterburners and followed him in.

On my way in, I couldn't stop the mental images of Torrent returning. She was dead because of that thing. And now it lay before me, damaged and stationary, possibly helpless, just waiting for me to avenge her.

I focused as much as I could, but it was only now that I noticed just how exhausted I was. This fight dwarfed everything I'd ever been in before. Distantly I though that this must be what the battle of Earth had been like.

I shuddered, remembering the terror and dismay I felt as I watched the battle unfold on a tactical display map at the academy. Blue dots seemed to vanish in groups of ten, the Kilrathi crawled ever closer to Earth and, well, Salamander will probably fill you in later; he was there after all.

We closed to within firing range of the carrier. Only three laser turrets started firing in our direction, the rest were either inoperative or the gunnery crews were dead. Or both; or neither.

"Change of plan kid," Salamander said, "Just shoot the bastards."

"Aye sir."

I called up the torpedo and waited for the lock chime. We were still afterburning towards the beast. The closer we were the less chance there was of the incredibly thin flak fire taking the torpedoes out. Also, it just felt better to slam the things into a Kilrathi cap ship at close range. It's more personal, for lack of a better word.

"Torpedo away!" Salamander half shouted.

Five seconds later, the lock chime finally sounded.

"Same here." I said, pressing down on the release. The torpedo shot out from under my ship and vanished into the distance.

The carrier was about five kilometres out. We needed to put some extra distance between us and it before it blew.

As we turned round I noticed that the wreck of the _H'varkann_ seemed to have cooled slightly. Huge gaping holes in the hole were still vomiting flame, but there were no explosions breaking out across it. There were however, brief hints of explosions in the distance.

I was too far out to know how the fighter engagement was progressing. Nothing was showing up on the radar except for the _Hermes_, (the computer automatically kept track of it over a distance of 100,000km considering at some point we'd have to go back there. There wasn't much point in keeping track of anything else that far out. If nothing else, it was nice to see that the _Hermes_ was still there.

A blinding flash from behind us signified that the _Bhantkara's_ fusion reactor had breached. The last Kilrathi cap ship was gone. Even if the remaining fighters killed us all, they wouldn't survive.

"Let's have a look shall we." Salamander said, he was starting to sound tired as well.

I brought my ship to a halt and came about. Sitting there before me was the crispy remnants of a Kilrathi carrier. Like the _H'varkann_, it seemed to have split in two.

"Rest in peace Ryuku."

It was hard to feel triumphant. A friend's life for an enemy ship is no exchange. Still, at least justice had been done.

We stared at it for about a minute before heading back to the _Hermes_. I kept a close eye on the radar, waiting intently to see thirty or so Kilrathi fighters heading in our direction.

Instead the first fighters I saw were four arrows. They were moving towards us; soon more blue dots crept onto the screen. I tried to quell the growing hope, and kept searching for Kilrathi.

"Welcome back." Scar uttered, appearing suddenly on the screen, "I'm guessing that torched Bhantkara over there is your doing."

"You guess correctly." I replied, "Am I dreaming or are there no Kilrathi fighters here."

"A fair few of them self destructed when they saw the _H'varkann_ blow up. Strange thing. Of course most of them tried to ram us. We managed to shoot them off each other's backs. Mostly."

_We won._

There was a moment of silence; part of me was thrilled and awed at the fact that we had prevailed. Another part of me was feeling equally deflated at the price we'd paid for this victory.

"How many did we lose?" Salamander asked.

"I'm not sure, but there aren't a great many of us left. And the _Hermes_ is disabled. She took a torpedo to the bridge."

"Oh shit," I responded, "Were there…"

"No survivors." I felt a sudden queasiness developing in my gut. "Landing operations are being directed by the Rome's communications officer. For now though we've been assigned to look for anyone who might have ejected."

"Understood." Salamander responded, "To that end, I picked up an ejection pod near the _Bhantkara_."

_Adish?_

_No!_

_It could…_

_No!_

You can't let yourself feel hope, it will only hurt you.

"Alright then you need to talk to the Rome's com officer. Fool, find yourself a wingman and then talk to one of the destroyers; they'll give you the location of a transponder beacon.

"Understood. See you all back at the ship."

**Seven minutes later**

In the end I was teamed up with Captain Gregory Colson, (no relation to Zach Colson), we went after the ejection pod of a pilot we believe came from Swift Blade squadron.

Neither of us said anything as we moved towards the pod. There didn't seem to be anything left to say.

This was the last ejection pod. There were only about seven of them in total, and there were only twice that many surviving fighters, not counting the seven we'd sent to Brimstone 2.

I wondered briefly what the Cat's would throw at us next time, two _H'varkanns_ maybe? They wouldn't just leave the system to us. It was too valuable for that.

"Attention, human life sign detected."

I thought the computer was talking about the ejection pod. Then my tactical display brought up something that was definitely different.

"Computer, what is that?"

"Sensors identify it as a Kilrathi escape pod."

"What? Confirm human life signs."

"Scanning…Human life signs confirmed. The pod has one occupant. It seems to have been heavily damaged and thrown here by the destruction of a Kilrathi capitol ship. Life support is failing."

_It couldn't be…_

_No it fucking well couldn't! That is NOT Torrent! She's dead. Do you understand that?_

_You're right, that has to be a Retro._

Whoever it was, we had to bring the pod back to the Hermes, there were still some unanswered questions which the Retros had to answer for us.

"Captain, you see that?"

"Yeah I see it." He replied, "Let's split up. I'll get the pilot, you get the pod. Make sure there's a security team to meet you on the launch deck."

"Understood."

The pod was spinning past me quickly. I afterburned after it. The chase took roughly two minutes but eventually I snared the damn thing.

It was too big to fit in my fighter; I'd to drag it back to the _Hermes_.

**Fourteen minutes later**

I stepped onto the empty deck and stretched my limbs free of the aches they'd accumulated in the cockpit. Since I'd been dragging the damaged pod, I'd been granted priority clearance, most of the pilots were still outside. There were three not too far away from me gathered next to one of the anti-grav cranes. No matter who was in that pod, they'd be of more use to us alive then dead.

When I noticed the line of marines walking in my direction I hastily stepped away from the pod that was lying on the floor and made my way over to the group of pilots. I doubted they'd mind me joining them; I got the feeling that there weren't a great many of us left.

Two of them nodded a greeting as I approached, the other stared at me with a look on his face that said he might lunge at me at any second.

"Do you know what…" He swallowed hastily, "Do you know what happened to Captain Dischler?"

"I'm sorry," I replied, not sure what tone of voice to use, "I don't know who that is."

"Joanne Dischler? 'Spindly'?"

"Sorry," I said again, "I don't know."

His eyes fell to the floor and he inhaled sharply, the sound was more like a hiss.

"You're Fool right?" Asked the pilot at my left, a tall looking bald guy. He looked familiar, then again so do a lot of people on carriers.

"Yeah."

He nodded, I doubted he really cared who I was; he was just making conversation. Looking for something to divert or disrupt his doubtlessly grim thought patterns.

"Who's that?" Asked the third pilot, a short African woman, gesturing at the Kilrathi escape pod. "Prince Thrakhath?"

"No, they're human whoever they are." Heads turned in my direction at this news, "a Retro maybe."

From the far corner of the room came a bellowing cry of,

"Stand clear!"

We moved slightly closer to the bulbous looking Kilrathi escape pod and tried to get a closer look.

The door snapped open with a loud clank and a hiss, and simultaneously the marines drove the muzzles of their guns into the entrance to the pod.

After a few seconds I definitely heard one of the marines say,

"What the fuck? It can't be."

Two of the marines stepped into the pod and whisked out the unconscious form of its occupant. When they pulled her up, I looked upon the sloped figure in their arms and almost had a heart attack.

_It can't be._

**To be continued.**


	24. Silence

**Greetings, thanks for the review. In answer to your question, the Hermes' stint in Brimstone is at an end, however...actually that's all i'll say. I don't want to give anything away.**

**Chapter 24: Silence**

**Salamander's perspective**

**Two days later**

With all the damage the ship had taken, no one had thought to draw up a proper casualty list, until now. Now I sat in my cabin and read the names on my computer for what must have been the sixth time.

1st Lieutenant Harold Kensington

2nd Lieutenant Silas 'Slimy' Prise

2nd Lieutenant Emilia Powel

Captain Dak-Ho Choi

1st Lieutenant Nathan 'Flute' Lloyd

Major Karl Von Tieschowitz

Commodore Kristen Ammadon

Lieutenant Colonel Kenji Matsumoto

Captain Wendy 'Titan' McAllister

2nd Lieutenant Alistair 'Lichen' Green

Lieutenant Colonel José 'Red bat' Martinez

Ensign Isabella Bedeau

2nd Lieutenant Jamie 'Cannonball' Rogers

Lieutenant Jake Coben

Ensign Ira Paine

1st Lieutenant Kate Wang

Colonel Cade Trent

And that's not even half. Not by a long shot. And this list didn't include the names of those who'd died onboard the escort ships that we'd lost. Maybe it would be easier to give you a list of people who'd survived.

The _Hermes_ was en-route to the Tomayo system, where it would be powered down and undergo a lengthy period of repairs. Two of the _Invincible's_ escort destroyers were accompanying us, as well as our surviving ones. Well, when I say accompanying us, they were helping to drag us to the Tomayo system. Without a proper bridge, the _Hermes_ couldn't fly herself. The downside of this is that getting to Tomayo would take a lot longer then usual.

For he most pat there hadn't been much for us to do but sit around, either on the carrier or on an uneventful shift outside in a fighter, flying alongside the wrecked _Hermes_.

I'd stayed in my cabin for the most part since I'd landed. It was the one place where I didn't feel the emptiness that now haunted the carrier quite so fully. The rec room is filled with empty seats which not three days ago had sat nervous looking pilots and crew who were now nothing more then bodies; or vapour trails in the Brimstone system.

In spite of all this, I couldn't help but feel overjoyed at the fact that the others, by which I mean Razor, Fool, Scar, Adish and even Torrent had survived.

When they'd pulled Adish's ejection pod out of my fighter I had to stare at his weary features for at least two minutes before my mind punched through the surge of disbelief and registered the fact that he was alive. With Torrent it had taken almost an hour.

It was Fool who had let me know that she was still alive. He was as jittery as a, um, jittery thing. He'd virtually dragged me to the infirmary and when I saw Torrent's face through the window I nearly went into shock.

It didn't seem possible. The same higher power or fate that I'd spent so much of my adult life bitching about had spared two of my friends from death, one of whom who had been a Kilrathi POW. In 99.99 of all cases you don't escape from that.

But Torrent had, God only knew how, but she had.

I hadn't had a chance to speak with her yet, the meds and councillors had been guarding her tenaciously since she was brought onboard. 'In the interests of ascertaining her mental condition' apparently. For now, I was just glad that she was alright.

When we'd arrived at Brimstone 2 and noticed the charred wrecks of two transports, I did two things. One was kick myself and mentally kick everyone else for not realising that the damn things weren't next to the _H'varkann_ when we engaged it, another was feel a strong and unyielding surge of panic when I realised that Razor hadn't escaped from the battle. I'd been certain I'd soon hear that she'd been killed by an enemy fighter wave.

Instead, her fighter was among the first two to land. When I saw her, it was too much. The relief, disbelief, shock, elation and dare I say it, love; made it impossible for me to do anything except go over to Razor and hold her. Considering that she returned the embrace instead of kneeing me in the crotch for this blatant, public show of affection, I'm guessing that she felt the same way. Hiding from everyone now just seemed pointless. Maybe because there was virtually no one left to hide from.

So that was that, over 1000 Confederation servicemen and women dead; almost ten times that number of Kilrathi incinerated, the Brimstone system had been saved, we had a number of Retros that had reportedly spilled their guts to Confederation interrogators. One H'varkann class dreadnought was gone, which might just cause problems on Kilrah for the Empire's power base, assuming that they couldn't hide this fact from their people. I didn't know if they could or couldn't, and I couldn't care less.

Maybe this would help elsewhere, the story of the _Hermes'_ triumph over the feared Kilrathi _H'varkann_ class dreadnought would inspire other pilots, other Confederation ship crews, maybe it was just the boost we needed to keep us from slitting our throats. Maybe not. Again, at the time I couldn't care less.

**Thirty nine minutes later**

There was a knock at my door which startled me from my depression induced trance.

"Come in."

Razor stepped through the doorway and smiled slightly as she walked over to the bed and sat down next to me.

"I thought I'd find you here."

I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out; nothing seemed appropriate.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm…" I paused, "I'm surviving. You?"

_Surviving? _The word sounded more and more stupid as I repeated it to myself.

Razor held out a closed hand in front of me. When she opened it, I saw two white metallic leaves, rank insignias of a Lieutenant Colonel.

I let loose a low whistle and distantly remembered that Fire Wing's squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel Martinez was on the casualty list.

"Congratulations." I said, trying to make it sound as genuine as possible.

"Captain Moran told me to tell you to get to her office at 17:00 hours. I think you'll be getting some of these yourself." There was a sick loathing in her voice, as if the rank insignia ribbons had been pulled callously from Martinez's corpse and handed to her. Granted that wasn't even close to the truth, but still, some things you can't ignore.

I couldn't help but feel slightly excited at the possibility of becoming a squadron commander. Then I remembered that Colonel Matsumoto would have paid for such a promotion with his life.

"Maybe." I said with traces of personal disgust in my voice. I, we, were sick of being promoted because our predecessors had been killed.

For a few moments we sat in silence. Then Razor broke it for both of us.

"Do you want to meet for dinner later?"

"Dinner?"

"Well, dinner being a euphemism for chocking down emergency rations in my quarters." I smiled faintly, it was a tempting offer but I didn't really feel up to doing more then as little as possible until we got to Vespus.

"Well, Samantha, to be honest I'm feeling pretty drained…"

"Too bad." She snapped, "I'm not going to have you cooped up in here slowing fading away. Get to my cabin at 20:00 hours. That's an order major."

It seemed I had no say in the matter.

"Aye ma'am." I replied, enjoying the first scraps of genuine humour that I'd felt in days.

"To that end," she continued, their was a satisfaction in her voice that told me she was enjoying her new found power far too much, "It wouldn't kill you to step outside for a while. You can't let that eat you up." She flicked her head at the computer in my lap, where the casualty list was still displayed.

I cast another glance at these names and it was then I realised how much I really didn't want to be looking at them, disrespectful though that may sound. I wasn't doing anything which could help them, and I wasn't doing myself any favours.

And a dismissive glance at the clock built into the wall told me I had only 20 minutes to get the Toronto to meet with Captain Moran.

"Oh shit!" I moaned, feeling a fresh surge of weariness with the effort of feeling shock.

I pushed myself up and made my way to the door. Once there I turned round, made a feeble gesture at the time display as an explanation for my sudden flight.

Razor turned her head towards it, turned it back to me and nodded.

"20.00 hours?"

"20.00 hours" She replied, "You get the food."

Smiling, (something which felt like I'd need nails implanted in my face to maintain), I left the room.

**Sixteen minutes later**

"Ah, Mr. Mclean, have a seat please."

I moved further into the barely lit office and tried not to cast my gaze at the image of the huge hull breach where the _Hermes'_ bridge once was that was displayed in the window.

I sat myself in the seat opposite Captain Moran. She was by the looks of things hastily trying to finish reading something on her display. She looked wasted; strands of long black hair had dropped over her bloodshot eyes. I'm guessing she hadn't slept in a while.

"I've just been reviewing the data collected from your flight recorder. Very impressive, Kramm 'Deathfang' nar Caxki has been thorn in Confed's collective side for far too long. Add to that the destruction of a Bhantkara class carrier."

"Thank you Captain," I replied, "But to be honest, Fool, I mean Lieutenant Venner deserves as much credit as I do for taking out Deathfang, and that carrier was all but dead when we got to it."

"No false modesty Colonel. You were able to keep Deathfang occupied for a long time, allowing for Lieutenant Venner to sneak up on him. That in itself is an achievement. Most pilots didn't last that long against him. Also you were the one who fired the shot that killed the furry bastard."

"Um…" I didn't know what to say to that, as I tried to think of something however, something else occurred to me, "Did you just call me…?"

She laughed, well, it was more of a short -lived, weary murmur truth be told.

"Yes Mr. Mclean, in view of your record and recent accomplishments, I have decided to award you a battlefield promotion to the rank of Colonel. I sent the notice through to HQ and the confirmation should come through within the next few days. You will be taking over as the Wing Commander of the Hermes once she is repaired, as well as Death's Shadow squadron's squadron commander until we can bring in a suitable replacement."

For a moment, I simply sat there, staring dumbfounded at the Captain. Being a Wing Commander was something I had never expected to live long enough to see, and something that didn't hold much appeal to me. I was content simply to go out and blast cats. This responsibility was, well, an unpleasant prospect.

Unfortunately during war time, promotions are non negotiable. And, stupid though it may sound, 'Colonel Mclean' had a nice ring to it.

I set another wave of revulsion at this thought, similar to the one I had felt at the prospect of becoming a squadron commander. Colonel Trent, the man who rightfully should be doing the job was dead. That was the main reason why I had been promoted. I could only hope that I'd prove to be a competent successor.

"Thank you Captain." I said at last, "I'll try not to disappoint."

"Be sure that you don't." Moran replied, and then, standing up and extending her hand said, "Congratulations Colonel. You've earned this."

I stood up, shook the offered hand and waited as she fished two rank insignias for a Colonel. They were similar to the ones Razor had shown me, only a lot darker.

I took the two small pieces of metal and instantly felt a fresh wave of panic go through me. _I wasn't ready for this, what the hell was Moran thinking? I don't…_

"Now if you'll excuse me Colonel I have a lot to get done. When you return to the Hermes, please hunt down Captain Ricks and tell her to report to my office at 19:00 hours."

"Of course Captain." I saluted, turned on my heel and left the room.

**An hour later**

I'm not sure exactly why I went to the briefing room. I guess I just wanted to see what would happen if I stood behind the podium I'd watched Trent stand behind time and time again. Looking at it now, it seemed a huge, cold and uninviting thing. To that end, so did the map display, the row of seats before me, virtually everything in this room. And giving briefings would be the easy part of this job.

Being a Colonel meant that I'd be assigned with sending people out to what may very well be their deaths every day. It would mean that I'd constantly have to be the embodiment of an optimism that I almost never felt in an effort to keep the morale of the pilots up. It meant that I'd have to scream down the neck of the first panicking plebe that ditched his craft the second a Kilrathi appeared behind him, and then later write the defcom to his or her relatives. Being a Wing Commander, by the looks of things was a soul crushing task. Trent had lived to the age of 41, and he looked like, used to look like he was in his late fifties. That was what I had to look forward to.

However, having said that, it was what I had to do. It was my responsibility now, my turn if you will, to lead the pilots of the TCS _Hermes_ to whatever end. And, difficult as it was, that was what I would do, even if it killed me.

**To be continued. (Bit of a short one I know. The next one should be longer.)**


	25. Innocence

**Thanks for your review. In answer to your questions, the story starts at pretty much the same time as WC3 does. Right now the Victory would have just left for the Lucanda system. I wasn't planning to put the Hermes in the Blackmane battle simply because it wasn't there in the game. Torrent was the one they'd fished out of the escape pod. I'll elaborate more on this in later chapters. She comes across as a hate machine because she's been captured and tortured by the Kilrathi. Her character should take on other traits in later chapters. I'd prefer not to answer your fourth question because I don't want to give too much of the plot away. The same is true of question five. Deathfang was meant to be an in game ace, he's mentioned in 'Victory Streak'. For whatever reason though he wasn't in the game. I'm not planning to include any of the aces we did see simply because they were all killed by Colonel Blair and were, to the best of my knowledge, nowhere near the Hermes. To answer question seven, I'm undecided about the Bloodfang. As for naming a ship after you, I don't see why not, but I won't be able to make it a Confederation class dreadnought. Also it may take a while for it to show itself.**

**Whoo, long authors note. Thanks again for the review and sorry for the wait. **

**Chapter 25: Innocence**

**Adish's perspective**

It took us a further four days to reach the Tomayo system. As it turns out we arrived shortly after the system had its own Kilrathi assault to worry about. I'm not too clear on the details but apparently with the aid of the TCS _Victory, _many a hairy bastard was sent to the grave.

This was all good news, but I can't say it really felt that way. I'd been shaking pretty much constantly ever since they pulled my ejection pod back to the _Hermes_. This was broken only by the occasional moment of disbelief and queasiness. A ghost ship can have that effect.

Not long after we'd gotten to the system, Captain Moran arrived onboard and called all of the pilots to the briefing room, all 17 of us.

Normally I complain when the briefing room is crowded, I always seem to get seated next to someone with overpowering bodily odour, or failing that, the aptly names Captain Larry, 'farter' Mills. Today, I'd have gladly sat through that for a solid week rather then sit in that room with its many empty chairs, trying not to look for missing faces. So instead I focused on Moran as best as I could.

"Ok," She was trying to sound triumphant, but she realised as well as any of us the price of that victory. "First of all, I wish to congratulate you all once again for your actions in the Brimstone system. Holding that system, and taking out a _H'varkann_ class dreadnought is of almost immeasurable value to the Confederation."

There was a brief murmur of agreement. It was something o be pleased about, for everyone else at least.

"Alright, now listen carefully people, because I have good news and a lot of it."

I looked up and wondered briefly if I was cracking up. Wartime good news was almost an oxymoron.

"First of all, with the total annihilation of all Kilrathi forces in Brimstone, and specifically with the destruction of their dreadnought, it seems the cats are getting a little worried about what kind of forces we might have in Vega. _Prowler_ corvettes have already discovered Kilrathi ships withdrawing from several systems around Brimstone, including Chang Cu."

We almost cheered, but there was just enough sick numbness in us to quell the urge and it came out as a quiet, low itched hoot from three or four people.

"The second piece of good news is that the Retros which survived their assault on _Oasis_ station have provided us with some worthwhile information. It seems that the Retros had had operatives on _Oasis_ for a long time, and also several other Confederation bases throughout Vega sector." This caused some uneasy murmuring. "The co-operation with the Kilrathi is only a recent development which they believed would be expedient. Their original plan was simply to gather their forces, capture the bases and outposts on which they were stationed and try and take Vega sector. Idiots

"Anyway, with the information they have provided us, we know the names and locations of a lot of Retro operatives and I have been told that a number of arrests have already been made. They won't be a problem here for much longer."

There was a moment of silence as we absorbed this information. The thought that even now, with news of Kilrathi attacks obliterating Confederation colonies become more and more frequent, and with news of retreats, losses and casualty lists as long as _Blackmane_ station, we _still_ had morons trying to destroy us from within.

And the worst part is that it was pure luck we'd been able to thwart them. The morons had eluded us. Then again, that might not be fair, we did have the Kilrathi to worry about after all, and who would have expected to find Retros in Vega?

Anyway, the point was that they had failed.

"My last piece of good news concerns you more closely. As I'm sure you've guessed, the _Hermes_ will take a few months to heal. Until it has, you'll all be given temporary assignments, most of which in this system. Before that however," She paused, probably for dramatic effect, "You've all been granted three weeks of shore leave. God knows you've earned it."

This time we did cheer. It had been a very long time since any of us had been home; far too long. Shore leave, like news of victories, seemed to be getting rarer and rarer. Shore leave which lasted more then three or four days was virtually a myth.

I forced myself not to think about it too hard, worried that over thinking would take it away.

"Shuttles will be departing from Tomayo 2's hanger deck in four hours, these will take you to _Cadiz_ depot, from there you can make your way to wherever you homelands may lie."

Some much needed grins broke out among the assembled pilots, myself included.

"Dismissed."

**Four and a half days later**

Let it be said now that I hate shuttles, I hate them all. They are crowded, overheated coffins.

Then again, I guess that it helped in making my first step into sunlight all the more enjoyable. Well at least it would if it wasn't raining. Adger 4 was almost renowned for its warm weather and incessant sunshine. Today however, in keeping with Murphy's Law, it was wetter then Planet hurricane.

Nevertheless, looking around me at the tightly packed, towering buildings and the swarms of sub orbitals, I knew I was home, and for one brief moment the war seemed like a bad dream.

The last time I'd stood at this shuttle port was almost a year and a half ago. I took in the view for a few more moments before the uncomfortable effects of standing in the rain overcame my sudden joy at setting foot upon my home once again and I made my way to a cluster of taxis.

**Three hours later**

"Uncle Adish!"

I looked down into the excited looking face of my five year old nephew and couldn't help but grin. When you spend half your life fighting to make sure kids like him and their families don't end up as cat food, or worse, it's always nice to see someone like him living happy and carefree. It was one of the few times when I could feel like I was doing my job properly.

"Hey Jason," I replied, "How's it going?"

"All's well sir." He quoted, probably from 'Eagle's prey', a long running cartoon series which basically showed Kilrathi getting shot to pieces left right and centre by one larger then life Confederation pilot and a handful of sidekicks.

Scattered about the floor I noticed three model Hellcats and a Longbow. I'd almost stepped on an arrow on my way in.

I summoned the gold star from my pocket, these we had been awarded about three days after the battle with the _H'varkann_. Whenever I got medals, (twice), I passed them on to Jason, they meant more to him then they ever would to me.

Remembering a magic trick that my father had taught me, I seemed to make the medal appear from behind Jason's ear. After I put it in his hand, his mouth opened in a huge grin.

"Don't be putting medals behind my boy's ears again." Imani Haajanen, my sister commanded from behind me, she was trying for lightness in her voice but it didn't hide what was underneath, "The last time you did that he was searching behind his ears for the damn things for weeks."

"No I wasn't." Jason protested, clearly embarrassed, then his eyes returned to the medal in his hand, How'd you get this uncle Adish?"

"Um, I…"

"I bet you killed lots of furballs."

I felt a sudden, unwelcome twinge of surprise. That was not a pleasant thing to hear from a five year old.

"Jason honey," Imani interrupted before I degenerated into more stuttering, "Why don't you go watch some more of that holovid you've got on the player, me and your uncle have to talk about grown up things."

"Ok," he said with a disappointed voice, "Thanks for the medal uncle Adish."

He walked off with the medal held tightly in one hand, he kept an eye on it as if he was afraid it would slither away if he let it out of his sight.

Imani walked towards the kitchen, I followed. For a few moments she didn't say anything, she just stared at me. She looked like she wasn't actually sure whether or not I was really standing there.

"I saw the newscasts." She said finally, "They're not talking about much else on the news. This was something big wasn't it? Something really important?"

"I hope so." I replied. "We saved a lot of lives, and the less Kilrathi dreadnoughts there are, the better it is for the rest of us."

Another silence followed, we both knew what we wanted to avoid, we just weren't sure how best to avoid it.

"How did you get that medal exactly."

Exactly? I didn't know. They'd given one to everyone and the sum total of my achievements involve hitting, although not destroying a Kilrathi carrier, (almost killing one of my closest friends in the process I was later to learn), and getting shot down by a Kilrathi ace.

"Killing furballs." I replied with more anger in my voice then I intended.

"Killing furballs." Imani replied savagely, "He's five years old and he's talking about killing like it's a fucking game." She kept her voice deliberately low to keep Jason from hearing it. I suddenly felt a sudden, familiar sense of shame.

"He doesn't understand, when he gets older he'll learn the truth."

"No," she snapped, and then inhaled heavily, "No, he won't. You've seen how he idolises you. His uncle the war hero. He wants to be just like you. You've seen that right."

I nodded, we'd had this conversation before but I guess starting it from scratch was somehow easier for her.

"I don't want that kind of life for my son. I won't have him whisked away by navy recruitment vultures to fight this damn war. He deserves better then that."

"We all deserve better then that." I responded, "But the universe doesn't hand things out based on what you deserve."

"Don't give me that shit! I'm not going to have my son die out there! I don't care if that's selfish. We've lost too much family already."

That last point was as much about me as it was about Jason.

"Dad knew what he was doing. He knew what he had to do."

"He wanted revenge." She said simply, he anger had vanished from her voice with a startling abruptness, "And the Cats got him too. That's why you went too isn't it?"

"That's why a lot of us are there."

"Revenge." She fell silent as if she was considering the word, whatever conclusions she drew; she didn't continue the topic, "You didn't help by giving him that medal."

"I'm sorry. I just figured that…"

"You're encouraging him. You're making this war look like a game. I've been trying to get him to focus on something, anything else. You're not making life easier."

I thought of the toy fighters on the floor and wondered why she allowed them. It was probably Edward, his father, who'd given them to him.

"Look," I said as softly as I could manage, "He's only five. It'll be a long time before he's old enough to enlist, and who knows what will happen before then? Maybe he'll loose interest in flying, maybe the war will be over by then."

"For God sake Adish, this war's never going to end. We can't stop those, those things out there. We can't beat them and we can't make peace with them." She shuddered, maybe remembering what happened when 'peace' was made with the Kilrathi, "we can only hold them off."

"You're wrong." I said simply. Not sure whether or not I believed myself.

Once again, silence broke out. I seated myself on one of the stools.

"We've lost enough people Adish." She said eventually, she sounded tired now, "Dad, Uncle Harry, Aunt Hetty. How long's it gonna be before…"

I swallowed, and wished I had a reassuring answer that she wouldn't see instantly as a lie.

"I'll be careful."

"That's never enough."

"No it isn't. But it's the best I can do. Look at the news Imani, things are looking up. Brimstone and Tomayo were saved; the Confederation will be on the offensive before too long, mark my words."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"Just trying to calm the mood enough so that I can steal a biscuit or two from that tray behind you."

Relief flooded through me when she laughed at this. The aura of depression that had entered the room seemed to retreat somewhat. Imani took the trey in one hand and held it out to me. Then snatched it away as I tried to steal a biscuit from it.

"These are for after dinner."

"Typical."

We both laughed this time. And now, with the grim conversation about life and death, war and loss less then a minute behind us, I still felt the warm, welcoming feeling that came with returning to your home world and seeing the family again that you'd gone through hell to make sure stayed alive.

"So what time's mum getting here?"

**To be continued**


	26. Rest

**Chapter 26: Rest**

**Razor's perspective**

You know, when you've spent the last year sleeping on undersized slabs of concrete which sadistic and/or delusional navy logistics personnel called bunks; it can be a startling thing to wake up on its large, soft polar opposite.

There were sounds below that my half sleeping mind initially thought was the _Hermes' _air recycling system crapping out again. On closer inspection I realised that it was the sound of people on the street outside, I'd almost forgotten what that sounded like.

I lifted myself up onto one elbow and listened with interest to the dozens of chattering voices below. I couldn't make out anything that anyone was saying, but the sound itself was like something, well, something that shouldn't be there. It didn't feel right.

I shook the thought aside as I heard the door to the bathroom open. Salamander stepped through, towelling his hair. He was looking better.

"Afternoon."

"Afternoon?" I replied, "How long was I asleep?"

He gestured to a nearby clock on a small bedside table. It read 12:30AM.

I stared at the clock in surprise for a few moments; I didn't think I was physically capable of sleeping that long anymore. I always woke around 7:30AM, no matter how much, if any, sleep I'd gotten.

In the corner of my eye I noticed Salamander grinning. I tried to suppress one of my own.

We'd decided to have a week to ourselves before we went off to visit relatives. We'd caught a shuttle to Earth from Tomayo and from there caught the first sub orbital transport to Arizona, (being the hottest place either of us could think of which hadn't been levelled by a Kilrathi missile). We'd decided to burn most of our pay over the last year in an extravagant looking hotel, (I forget the name), figuring we might as well make use of our pay checks whilst we still could.

By the time we'd arrived it had been late evening, two days into our shore leave and neither of us were up to do anything more then eating assorted peanuts from the mini-bar and passing out under the covers of the bed.

Today, by the looks of things, the sun was shining brightly. Part of me wanted nothing more then to get outside in the fresh air. I'd been waiting a year to feel the wind again. Of course I wasn't so mad with the desire to step outside that I lost track of helpful details such as it might be a good idea to get dressed first.

As I moved to get out of bed, Salamander slipped underneath the covers, closed his arms around my waist and leaned in to kiss the side of my neck.

I smiled as I turned round to face him; I guess it wouldn't hurt to stay in a few more hours.

**Five hours later**

The streets outside weren't nearly as crowded as I expected. A lot of people had probably gone back to their assorted places of work. We received a few stares from passing pedestrians as we walked by, probably because we were still in uniform. We didn't have any other clothes with us.

It was hard to tell much of anything in the stares. They weren't filled with resentment, admiration or loathing. They were just blank. It was a little unnerving.

As we turned a corner, a bored looking man in a Lieutenant's uniform offered a leaflet to me. Then he noticed my uniform and took it back.

"Sorry ma'am." He said.

Salamander glanced as the collection of leaflets in the man's hand; then nodded to himself. I looked myself and found to no great surprise that they were 'join the navy' flyers.

"Any takers?" He asked.

"Hard to say sir; more people seem to be taking them home today then jus tearing them up in front of me at least."

I almost seethed. It seemed that everywhere you went in the Confederation you found weasels, idiots and cowards, those that were content to blindly ignore the threat of the Kilrathi or those that were content to cower behind the shield of the Navy without doing anything to help it themselves. That wasn't true of everyone of course, not by a long shot. But anyway, I'd rather not get into a rant right now.

"Excuse me sir, ma'am. But aren't you um," he paused and clicked his fingers a few times, "I'm sorry, I know I've seen your faces somewhere. Oh yeah, you were on the Hermes weren't you? I saw your faces on a few of the newscasts."

He what? What the hell were we doing there?

I thought about it for a few seconds and realised that it would probably make some sense. This was bound to be something the news services would feed on for as long as they possibly could, that would mean recorded footage of 'showable' parts of the battle, reports about exactly what strategies were used to slay the _H'varkann_ beast, and of course mentions of the surviving crew and pilots, maybe even interviews.

I bristled at the thought, and made a silent promise to myself that any news vulture that shoved a camera in my face would find themselves pulling it out of their throat.

We talked for a few more minutes, and then the Lieutenant directed us towards the 'The Hidden Hellhole', a bar which was apparently a popular haunt for all servicemen and women in the area. This was pretty much the only bar we could go to in the area. Anywhere else, we'd probably get into an argument with a pacifist or two and wind up in a fist fight. That's what happened last time, and neither of us really felt up to it.

**Twenty Minute Later**

The bar was as you'd expect it. Small, simple and unpretentious with an aging bartender who'd retired from the service and a handful of patrons in Navy uniforms, all of whom looked half dead.

A few of them gave us a weary nod when we entered. Most of them were home fleet types, clean shaven and youthful, all discussing things like why they should be at the front and what they'd like to do to Saryanna Carr in the cockpit of a Longbow.

There were also a handful of older people, veterans presumably. Creatures of legend that had somehow, either through injury or old age managed to retire from the navy.

Salamander fetched some drinks whilst I snared a table in as secluded a corner of the place as I could find. It took him a while to extract himself from a conversation with the bartender. By the looks of things, he recognised our faces as well.

This had the makings of a long week.

Salamander finally walked to the table, shaking his head in exasperation as he did so. I hid a grin as he sat down.

**Fifteen Minutes Later**

"Three of the hairy buggers were coming up behind me, another two in front of me. Lasers flying every whichway. My wingman's ejected. What I did see, I waited until the hairballs were practically flying through my windshield and up my tailpipe, then I drop a mine, tilt upwards, hit my afterburners and watched the inferno behind me. One mine, five dead fleabags."

The captain who told us that story pushed back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. By the looks of things he was waiting for us to applaud.

Instead all he received were a number of glares from those seated at the table we'd all crowded round in at the end.

"I thought it was four Kilrathi. That's what you said last time." Uttered a second bar patron.

"No I didn't, I said five."

I shook my head. In reality he probably dropped five mines in the path of a single Kilrathi. You will always get egotistical idiots preaching superhuman feats of flying that only the insanely lucky or people with broken flight recorders ever manage to achieve.

I signalled to the bartender for a refill and watched as the Captain's face took on a familiar look of awkwardness.

"So I hear you took out Deathfang." Uttered a shortish looking second lieutenant who'd been flicking sideways glances at Salamander and me ever since we came to the table. He then hastily added, "Sir."

Salamander mumbled something under his breath that I didn't catch.

"It was a team effort really." He said slowly.

"That's not what we heard on the newscasts Colonel," added a second, 2nd lieutenant. "We heard that massacred him. They had footage of you closing on his spinning fighter and blasting it to pieces."

"They what?" His tone was so dark the Lieutenant face took on an abrupt look of horror.

"That's just what we heard sir." Squeaked the Lieutenant. "They've been saying a lot about you over the newscasts. Both of you actually."

I drew in a deep breath and thought for what must by now have been the seventeenth time that this was going to be a long week.

"Those fucking…" I cut myself off and was about to say something more when another of the pilots spoke, I remember she was wearing an eye patch which struck me as strange.

"Ah those newsie bastards will twist anything. They're making a very big deal of the fact that you two are," She formed her hands into talons and pushed them together, signifying that me and Salamander were a couple presumably.

I suppressed a look of horror. For one thing that was none of their fucking business. Secondly, if Fool saw that he'd have enough incentive to churn out taunts from now till doomsday.

"Still," she continued, "Best you can do is just ignore them. We've all got more important things to worry about then some over dramatised hero story."

From the amount of venom in her voice I wondered if she'd had media troubles herself.

"What happened with Deathfang," Salamander said, apparently eager for a change of subject, "He was picking us off one at a time. He was trying to kill me and it was pretty much all I could do to stay out of his way. A guy from my squadron got lucky and sent two missiles up his arse. I closed in and finished him off."

There was a nodding of heads from our audience who, truth be told, seemed a little disappointed. I guess the story lacked the dramatic edge that the media had apparently endowed it with.

"What about you ma'am." Asked one of the lieutenants, "If you don't mind me asking? The news didn't mention your role in the battle."

I shuddered as I considered what it might have mentioned instead. I made a mental note to go to Washington and rip out Barbara Miles' throat before replying.

"I commanded the fighter detachment on the surface. A fair few Kilrathi tried a pre-emptive strike with their Retro minions in advance of their main fleet." I paused, recalling the battle and in particular the dying screams of Confederation pilots, "We sent them packing."

"Retros?" The boastful major spat out, "I heard those bunch of fuckers were in Vega. What the fuck has crawled into their heads to make them so retarded. I mean…"

"Calm down Jack," The woman with the eye patch interrupted, "They're being dealt with as we speak." She flicked a gaze in our direction, "Right?"

"Right." I replied.

We stayed there a little longer before paying our tabs and leaving. The street outside was becoming more lively as the early evening crowds in search of a dinner they didn't have to cook themselves took to the streets.

Neither of us said much as we wandered aimlessly through the collection of intertwining roads. Salamander looked ready to punch the first person he saw. I couldn't say I blamed him. So many of us had died to secure the Brimstone system, and the most the media were willing to say about it it seemed was that…

I said I wasn't going to go into a rant. So I won't.

A few heads turned our way as we walked through the streets, I noticed two teenage girls whispering and pointing in our direction as we passed and it took a great deal of self control not to bury my fist in their necks.

In the end we decided to abandon going to a restaurant and instead bought some assorted hot foods which we ate at the hotel. I forget what it was exactly.

Salamander was quiet after we got back. I think the whole thing got to him more then it did to me. Remember when I told you that when you spend your life trying to keep your home worlds from becoming a series of large cratered rocks that the more trivial things start to seem unimportant. Well, it's a different story when the people you're trying to defend are beating you over the head with those aforementioned trivial things; well, it's hard not to feel betrayed.

**To be continued.**


	27. 24 Cublings

**Sorry it's taken so long to get an update up. Also thanks to Neo45 for reviewing.**

**Chapter 27: 2.4 Cublings**

**Torrent's Perspective**

I tried to sleep through the shuttle flight but tired as I was, I couldn't manage it. I'd barely been able to sleep since I'd gotten back to the Hermes. I kept expecting to wake up back on the _H'varkann. _Then again, I'd felt the same thing at pretty much every waking moment. It had been a shadow hanging over my head ever since I'd first woken up in the _Hermes'_ infirmary.

The psych types had asked questions for what must have been two solid days before I was even aloud out of the room. I'd been this close to knocking Doctor Simmons' teeth down his throat when I was finally discharged.

The shadow was still there when I first saw Fool, Adish and the others. It was a miracle that they had all survived, considering that virtually no one else had. We'd lost so many people, and everyone who was left had looked like they'd had their souls ripped out.

The looks on Adish and Fool's face when they first saw me was, strange. I can't think how else to say it. In their eyes, they'd both almost killed me. In reality they'd done just the opposite, without Adish's torpedoes I'd never have escaped, and if Salamander and Fool hadn't taken out the carrier, they could have easily tractored me back in and clawed my throat out. Salamander seemed to understand this, but Adish and Fool didn't. I'm not certain I'd feel any differently if the situation had been reversed.

It had to have been at least a week since I'd heard someone laugh. I mean since I'd heard a laugh which didn't belong to an enemy.

"Are you ill at ease my friend?"

Z'ratmak's booming voice startled me out of the half conscious daze I'd been stuck in for the last ten minutes. I shook myself and blinked a few times, trying to get used to the light level.

"I'm alright." I replied.

Z'ratmak grunted and returned his gaze to the stars in the window. The marine units from the Invincible had been granted shore leave as well, Z'ratmak had come over to the Hermes and now was heading to Ghorah Khar, with me in tow.

It had been Simmons' idea. Going to Ghorah Khar was supposed to help me get over any lingering quote fear of the Kilrathi that may remain after the, um, 'incident' unquote. Maybe it made sense, but personally, and no offence to Z'ratmak or any of the Kilrathi on Ghorah Khar, there were a fair few places I'd rather spend three weeks of leave.

Unfortunately, I had to prove to the powers that be that I could be among Kilrathi without being reduced to a gibbering wreck, along with about three thousand other tests, otherwise I was looking at a medical discharge.

I wouldn't lose my career to the Kilrathi.

"I believe," Z'ratmak said with an uncharacteristic hint of caution in his voice, "That Sivar has tested you in the Brimstone system."

I wasn't sure what to say to that. I was more inclined to believe that divine intervention had been responsible for my escape. And why that would be Sivar I didn't know.

"Yeah?" I asked, trying to force away the weariness.

"She tested your worthiness by delivering you to the hands of the enemy. You proved yourself a true warrior through your escape."

He flowed up this assertion with a satisfied noise that was halfway between a purr and a grunt. I couldn't help but smile.

"You think so?"

"Sivar tests all warriors."

"Even human ones?"

"All warriors," he repeated, "Victory in this war shall eventually be granted to the most worthy species. The Empire has abandoned honour and with it their worth."

I nodded and considered this theory for a moment. It was kind of creepy in a way to think that the entire war was orchestrated by a Kilrathi war god simply to see who was worthy and who wasn't. Maybe I'm missing the point.

"Attention." Muttered a nonchalant computer voice, "Estimated arrival time at Ghorah Khar is now five hours."

I sighed and pushed my head back into the headrest, then abandoned it in favour of Z'ratmak's arm. It was considerably more comfortable.

"Insufferable cubling." He muttered. I laughed and after a few seconds, so did he.

As a rule, fearless Kilrathi warriors don't like being used as pillows. He didn't shrug me off however, so I closed my eyes and eventually managed to sleep.

**Four and a half hours later**

"_I believe you know how poorly your race fares in this war. I believe you know how close defeat is, and I believe you know why your carrier advances on our command ship. So I will ask you once more, why does it challenge a ship which will swat it aside with ease?"_

_I know what comes next, but I can't do anything to change it. The claw is resting on the side of my head, there's already blood trickling down it. I try to get away from…_

I awoke with a loud gasp and lunged forward in my seat, only to be caught by the safety harness before I fell to the deck.

Realisation struck. That made the fifth nightmare I'd had since I'd escaped. I didn't need this.

In the wake of the dream, it was more then a little unnerving when Z'ratmak rested a paw on my shoulder.

"Are you alright Ryuku?"

I turned and stared at him. There was obvious concern in his eyes.

"I'm ok." I said, not fooling either of us.

Z'ratmak continued to stare at me for a few moments, then he removed his paw from my shoulder and returned it to the arm rest.

"I believe Sivar tests you still."

**An hour later**

I'm not sure what I'd been expecting, but it certainly wasn't this.

Ghorah Khar was a beautiful world, at least this part of it was. We were in a small village near the edge of a city that apparently covered half the continent. There were tall trees, huge green fields, unreasonably large birds which looked like a freakish hybrid of a bat and a seagull, and all manner of other natural wonders that made it seem all the more implausible that Kilrathi lived here.

I guess I expected all Kilrathi worlds to resemble Kilrah. Ghastly hell holes that compliment the Imperial soul. Apparently, Kilrah used to look like this world, but the Kilrathi had promptly ruined it. Well, them and the frequent earthquakes.

Z'ratmak was walking at an awkwardly fast pace that it was hard to keep up with. The look on his face was one of a man who'd been away from home for far too long. He was taking in deep lungfulls of air as he walked and paused occasionally to watch the in-system security's patrol crafts, (mainly Drakhi and third generation Dralthis.) The Kilrathi citizens had insisted on keeping their own fighters as opposed to switching to Confederation equivalents. That wouldn't do them many favours if the Kilrathi attacked.

There were a fair few humans dotted about the streets among the Kilrathi. Many of the Kilrathi were going about their business as usual, however there were some who seemed to bristle at the presence of terran apes on their streets, (in a context other then that of slaves or lunch.) I resisted the urge to sneer at one such Kilrathi who bared his fangs at me as I passed.

"You're h'rai know I'm coming right?" I asked, running up beside Z'ratmak, who looked as if he was moments away from breaking into a sprint,

"Yes," he replied distantly.

"Are they alright with it?"

"They are. Although my mate made hushed mentions of a lingering smell you were likely to bring with you."

"Charming."

Eventually we came to a building which looked like two horns extending from the ground. They were joined by a rectangular area at the base.

Seated upon the grass outside was a young looking Kilrathi who looked like he was guarding the house. Upon sighting him, Z'ratmak called out something to the youngster, who moved into the house and shouted to those inside.

Z'ratmak took off towards the house and was promptly greeted by four other Kilrathi, his mate and children. I stayed in the distance for a while, not wanting to interrupt the family reunion. It was a strange sight, they all stood in a rough circle, talking at the same time and flicking their tails from side to side in the same way that contented terran cats do. I couldn't help but grin.

Eventually I was called forward. Vra'kara, Z'ratmak's mate greeted me with a curt nod, she seemed friendly enough, but there was an impression that it was forced. I'm not sure but I don't think that was anything against me personally, I think my presence was just an inconvenience for her.

The children, (the oldest of whom was ten years old and who also towered above me), stared at me with looks that made it seem that they had to remind themselves that I was a guest and not dinner. Maybe that's an exaggeration. Anyway, after the introductions were over, we headed inside.

**Three hours later**

After the evening meal, or the day's meal for that matter, I sat in the dining room for about an hour with everyone else slumped over the table, snoring loudly.

Kilrathi dietary habits are somewhat different from humans. One colossal meal sustains them for a day, after which they sleep so deeply that it's only the occasional fart that shows you they're not dead. Seriously.

I'd been handed a smallish slice of meat from the colossal beast that M'thrak and Krath, Z'ratmak's two eldest sons had hunted down earlier that day. I was also given an unpleasant amount of some assorted leaves that I'd seen scattered about everywhere on this planet. They tasted surprisingly like cress. I was told I could pick leaves from the garden if I became hungry later on.

Later, simply out of curiosity, I'd gone for a walk around the house. I'm not sure what I expected to see, family holo-images, skulls on the wall, paintings on the fridge. It was hard to imagine.

Many of the rooms were clean and barren, and pretty spacious for that matter. There were assorted tables and chairs. All made out of solid stone. There was an ancient looking book in the centre of one room, flanked by candles and two statues of creatures which looked vaguely Kilrathi. I wasn't sure what the purpose of this room was, but it looked like something best left alone.

As I moved off and turned the corner, I felt a light tap on the back of my neck.

I turned and found myself face to face with M'thrak; he was looking very pleased with himself.

"If you were truly my prey, you would be dead now." He said.

After a few moments, it occurred to me that he must have been practicing his hunting skills on me.

"How long have you been following me?" I asked eventually.

"Since you left the feasting hall." He replied, "My father names you for a formidable warrior, but it seems you could stand to be more vigilant."

This kid didn't sound, (or look for that matter), like a ten year old. Maybe Kilrathi develop quicker then humans, I never really found out.

"I'm a pilot," I replied, "We're taught the value of vigilance in a cockpit of a fighter, it's a little different."

"Ah yes, I have read of it." There was a strange energy to the Kilrathi in front of me that briefly made him look as young as he was, "I hope to one day become a pilot myself, so that I may fight as my father does."

"You want to fly for the Confederation?"

"Yes. I believe I could benefit the fight against the Empire."

I waited a few moments before asking my next question, I wasn't sure how to phrase this.

"You, um, you don't have any problems with fighting against your own kind?"

At that, he unsheathed his claws and let loose a long, angry growl. I took a few steps back, but he seemed to shake his head and lowered his still sheathed claws to his sides. It seemed he wasn't snarling at me.

"The Empire," he roared, "has lost what honour it once had. It strikes out at all it sees, leading itself to ruin, sacrificing so many lives in the glory of an Emperor who cares not for his own people. They slaughter worlds of defenceless creatures and consider it an honourable hunt. They would gladly slaughter my h'rai if they were able. I will not allow that to happen so long as there is breath in my lungs."

We sat in silence for a few moments after that, he gradually calmed down, I considered what he'd said. Z'ratmak had told me as much himself many times, with the same anger in his voice. For the first time it actually seemed clear to me why the Kilrathi on Ghorah Khar had defected, before now I hadn't really considered it as anything more then a fluke, but now, with this enraged, youthful warrior standing before me, I got an idea of just how many Kilrathi shared the same view as most humans, that this war was a pointless waste.

"You take after your father," I told him eventually, "I'm sure you'll make him proud."

Abruptly, the anger seemed to melt away from M'thrak and he was soon grinning again. As I looked at him, something occurred to me, something that again made me want to knock Dr. Simmons' teeth down his throat.

How was I ever going to be able to fight after this? How would I be able to go on killing Kilrathi if every time I fired, I envisioned such faces as the one before me in the cockpit? Before now, I'd always treated Z'ratmak as an exception, only one of a very small number of Kilrathi and completely unlike anyone I'd ever meet in a cockpit. Now, how could I tell that the people I shot down weren't people like the Kilrathi in front of me?

I received my answer with the sound of the first explosion.

**To be continued**


	28. Justification

**I'm sorry that this has taken so long. Long story short i've had no shortage of pestiferous tasks, mostly university related which have kept me from updating. Also, been giving me grief as of late.**

**Anyhoo, thanks to all readers.**

**Chapter 28: Justification**

**Torrent's perspective**

The blast shook the ground and sent M'rath and me to the floor. Pain surged through my arm as my elbow connected with the hard stone surface. I ignored it, or at least tried to. The terrifying realisation had at last set in and I knew that I couldn't afford to waste time with physical pain.

Whether I could spend it doing anything more constructive however was something I doubted.

From outside I hear the first screams. Pained and fearful roars of civilians and the quieter human equivalents. Z'ratmak's own roar drowned them all out as he presumably figured out what was going on.

"No!" M'rath roared from above me. He righted himself long before my brain had told my body to do the same.

He began to move for the hall leading to the front door.

"Hey wait, what are you…?"

"My test is at hand." He replied, moving to the door at a speed which I could barely match. "I must go to defend my homeland."

"How can you help, they'll kill you!"

"Perhaps." He replied, his voice both grim and angry.

This wasn't the case of an idiot rookie overreaching in the name of glory, this was a kid who knew full well that he couldn't do anything to help and would only get himself killed in the attempt, but he was going to try anyway.

He really did take after his father.

Speaking of his father, Z'ratmak miraculously appeared on the other side of the hall before M'rath could get to the exit. He grabbed the youngster by the scruff of the neck and immediately began shouting something to him in Kilrathi. I don't know what he said but I imagine it was something along the lines of 'What the hell do you think you're doing you idiot?'

Most people would think that he was angry, but I'd listened to Z'ratmak speaking long enough to realise that he always sounded like he was ready to rip off someone's head. I could also, barely detect the faint traces of concern and even, well, fatherly pride I guess in his tone.

A second explosion, this one closer. I fell to the floor, the other two fell against the walls but managed to stay standing.

With one arm, Z'ratmak hoisted me to my feet, with the other he pointed behind him. On this cue, M'rath disappeared from the scene.

"Fighter base?" I managed to cough out in the midst of coughing and cradling the damaged arm that I'd again fallen on.

"I will take you there." Z'ratmak said, he sounded remarkably calm considering what was happening.

I nodded and soon found myself struggling to keep up with Z'ratmak who was making a pained effort to be quick and move slow enough for me to catch up to him at the same time.

No sooner had the door to Z'ratmak's house opened then I found myself staring at the bulbous bow of a _Ralatha_ class destroyer. At its sides were two Kamrani class corvettes. Beneath them lay flaming wrecks of buildings that they had obliterated.

People were running in the streets. Some were hastily trying to get their families out into the open where they presumed it would be safer, others were just running, either to somewhere or just away from the Kil… I mean from the imperial warships.

I noticed four or so humans who were dressed in flight gear. It looked like they were heading in the same direction as me and Z'ratmak.

"I'll follow them!" I shouted over the noise of the chaos in the streets, I doubted that Z'ratmak would hear me, but I had to try, "You get back, get your h'rai away from here."

No sooner were these words out of my mouth then Z'ratmak sidestepped and swung around. He gave me a rushed clap on the shoulder which almost sent me flying to the ground again, and then disappeared back into the crowd.

I tried to keep up with the crowd of pilots and at the same time tried to ignore the voice in my head that told me that there probably wouldn't be a free ship at the base, and that even if there was, they wouldn't trust me with it.

**Four minutes later**

"Terran. You shall fly on my wing."

The face on my com screen lingered impatiently and it took me a moment to realise that I wasn't looking at the face of the enemy. I could happily walk among the streets of a Kilrathi planet it seemed but on the com screen of a fighter, it was hard to think of them as anything but enemies.

"Understood."

"Power up your engines and prepare to follow me to the destroyer. We shall show these fools what it is to be a warrior."

I scanned my fighter's cockpit and found the start-up controls in the same place as they were in a Thunderbolt. The Grikath I was sitting in had been redesigned to accommodate human pilots, but the layout of the controls still seemed different to what I was used to.

The engines started up with an unfamiliar whine. I waited impatiently, trying not to think about the buildings that were being levelled and the civilians being killing by the enemy whilst I was sitting on the ground.

"Attention all fighters, we have incoming hostile contacts on radar. Get your ships in the air ASAP."

My radar was still offline. This was taking too long, damn sluggish Kilrathi technology.

Two streaks of white smoke shot away into the air. I couldn't see what they were firing at, but I knew that they were directly overhead, and that they had to be pretty close now.

There was an explosion to my right. I turned my head around and saw a flaming wreck that had been a second Grikath. Debris from the fighter slammed into my hull, I landed a fist on the controls in the pointless hope that the damn thing would power up sooner.

A Dralthi swooped into my field of vision and then began to climb upwards. Another missile soon incinerated his craft, but my now operation radar told me that there were no shortage of hostile fighters to take his place.

"Ready to launch." My computer uttered disinterestedly. I punched the stick and retracted the landing gear. My wing leader was nowhere to be seen, maybe he'd already been taken out by…

"Terran, follow me to the destroyer. My brothers and your pilots shall hold the enemy here."

Or maybe not.

I called up the Ralatha on my tactical display and brought my ship around. A bomber is sluggish at the best of times and the windy atmospheric conditions weren't helping. If nothing else it didn't seem to be doing the hull any damage.

The Ralatha had already moved past Z'ratmak's house. I could only hope that he'd managed to get his family out of there and gotten clear of the area.

"Attention all fighters. The fighter squadron from the TCS _Caledonia_ has entered the atmosphere. They shall arrive in 10 minutes."

In ten minutes the _Ralatha_ could level the village and a fair bit of the city. To that end they could have levelled the colony from orbit with a few well placed nukes. Their method of attack was slow and put their own ships at unnecessary risk.

A theory as to why they may have done this did spring to mind, but I didn't have time to contemplate it. My ship shuddered as a Darket began to fire meson blasts into my rear shields.

There wasn't time to find a gunner so the computer had to handle the rear turret. The Darket didn't seem to be having any trouble evading the painfully slow shots that were being hurled at it.

I was tempted to shout at my Kat wing leader for not snaring some fighter cover for this bombing run. But in a more rational moment I doubt I'd blame him. All that mattered was to him was to protect his people form that destroyer. He was so focused on that that he couldn't consider anything other then charging at it with as many torpedoes as he could find.

And as admirable as that was, it looked like it would get us killed.

"Incoming contacts." I said over the com, "looks like four Vaktoths, heading straight at us."

"Prepare one of your torpedoes and reset your targeting systems to fire blindly. Aim for their lead fighter. That should allow us to break through We must not let anything stand between us and that destroyer."

"Understood."

My rear turret wasn't meeting with any success, and it looked like another two fighters were closing in from behind us.

The Vaktoths were getting close. I could see my target, it looked like he was coming at me. The other two were heading for the second Grikath. They weren't sticking to a fixed course, it was going to be next to impossible to hit him.

My ship had stopped shuddering.

I ignored this fortuitous fact and kept trying to line my ship up with the Vaktoth. Almost a heartbeat before I would have fired the torpedo, I saw the enemy fighter break into a chaotic spin, and then break apart.

The other two ships peeled off. I checked my rear view display, my pursuer was gone as well.

"What the hell is?"

"My brothers on the surface. They are covering us."

So it seemed, my radar was showing a lot yellow dots which were closing on the red ones. The marines or land warriors or whatever they were called were laying into the enemy fighters with portable rocket launchers and by the looks of things a few tanks had made it into the streets. These weren't ideal weapons to use against fighters. It would probably take about four successive rocket hits to have destroyed that Vaktoth. But they certainly seemed to be getting the job done. The two remaining Vaktoths were soon little more then debris sticking out of the grass.

Marines covering fighters. It doesn't really sound right does it?

Anyway, we were getting close to the _Ralatha_. There was a second friendly Grikath wing behind us which was a little reassuring, unfortunately there were also seven Dralthi and a _Kamrani_ corvette between us and the destroyer.

"You shall die, pathetic traitor."

The voice belonged to one of the Dralthi pilots. I'm guessing that he realised I was a human and not a Kilrathi defector, but he didn't seem to care. His voice was filled with a revolting satisfaction. The pilot was helping to slaughter innocent civilians and to him they were nothing more then prey to be slaughtered.

My teeth tightened and I was about to call up an anti-fighter missile when inspiration struck.

"Sir," I said to my wing leader, "I recommend we fire all our friend or foe missiles into the wing of enemy fighters in front of us. We might be able to punch through them, or scatter them long enough to break through."

I wasn't sure how he'd respond to that, to be honest I wasn't sure if he was even listening to me. For a few seconds there was silence, and then he spoke.

"Very well, prepare your missiles and fire as soon as we are in range."

"Yes sir."

We each had three missiles. I prepared them for simultaneous release and called up the nearest Dralthi on my tactical display. They were close now. 12,000 kilometres.

I realised then that the missiles might very well all head for the same target. That would leave 6 unmolested Dralthi free to rip us apart. Still, it was the best shot we had.

10,000 kilometres.

A single _Ralatha_ couldn't destroy the colony, at least not at this speed. This had to be a demonstration strike. Something to put the fear of God into the Ghorah Kharans. They'd almost certainly be sending a stronger force to the colony soon.

8,000 kilometres.

"Fire!"

The thin trails the missiles created vanished quickly in the now cloudy sky. I watched the radar and watched in dismay as all of my missiles converged on a single red dot. If nothing else they managed to take it out. I didn't see how well the other three missiles had fared.

"I go to Sivar!" Came the shriek from one Dralthi pilot who was plummeting to the ground. Hopefully onto a patch of empty space.

There were five of them left. Still more then enough to take us out, but they had scattered.

"Activate your afterburners terran. We must destroy that ship no matter what."

I did as he ordered. We were 15,000 kilometres away from the destroyer. Another 5,000km and we'd be within torpedo range.

But the Dralthi would recover themselves and move to intercept us long before then, and the first bits of flak fire were already coming in from the flanking corvette.

Something on the surface was firing at the Ralatha's underbelly. By the looks of things it was trying to destroy its turrets. It didn't look like they were meeting with much success.

A Grikath passed in front of my view screen. Its engines were on fire and it was leaving smoke in its wake. I had to pull up hard to avoid hitting it.

I felt a brief, almost instinctive elation at the destruction of a Kilrathi ship, then realised that this was my wing leader. Panic, regret and a trace of shame soon followed this realisation.

"Terran," The face of my doomed wing leader on the screen was startling to say the least.

Why didn't he eject?

"You must destroy the _Ralatha_." He continued, I think he was trying to pull up, "It must not li…"

His face vanished from the screen, and his ship vanished from the radar.

I lined my ship up with the _Ralatha_ once again. It was at last in torpedo range.

I gripped the flight stick so tightly that I'm surprised I didn't snap it off. This was what I'd been waiting for. I didn't at the time realise that I'd been waiting for it, but now, fuelled by a desire for vengeance and also to avenge those that had been killed by that monster, I felt my self energised by a strange kind of focused fury.

My ship began to shudder, The Dralthi had finally engaged me. I swung to the left somewhat in an attempt to evade their fire and at the same time keep the lock, they soon compensated.

My lock alarm sounded and I released one of the ship's chaff pods in response.

It made no difference.

The missile slammed into my ship and I was instantly sent into a spin. The Dralthi peeled off, they were probably getting too close and were pulling back for a new attack run. By the time I corrected my ship's course. I had lost my lock on the destroyer.

_Shit!_

I was out of time. The Dralthi would finish me with their next attack, and I didn't have time to wait for a new missile lock.

My ship was shaking, my engines had taken a hit and it was difficult to keep my fighter steady. I think I was losing altitude as well.

I prepped the ship's three torpedoes for simultaneous launch, over-rided the launch controls, and fired.

**To be continued**


	29. Predators

**Chapter 29: Predators**

**Z'ratmak's perspective**

"Father! Look!"

I could barely hear Krath's shout over the deafening sound that had caught all of our attentions. He needn't have said anything, but cubs I've found have a tendency to point out the obvious with surprising zeal. I was much the same when I was his age.

The blast from what I could only assume were torpedo impacts quickly dissipated in the wind, but the fatal blow that they had delivered to the destroyer was evident. A colossal hull breach appeared to have claimed about half of the entire forward section. The bridge of the destroyer had been consumed by the blast, and what was left of the bow was engulfed in flames. The ship appeared to be tilting backwards, though I could not be sure.

Someone cheered, another did the same a moment later and before long we were all celebrating the destruction of the craft that had brought down devastation on our homes. This celebration was short lived however. It was now evident that the ship was losing altitude. It would crash into the surface, and the resulting explosion from its fusion core would surely take out the village and a considerable chunk of the colony.

This was, for lack of a better word, a shame. But what is of the utmost importance is that we were able to evacuate everyone we could. The people of Ghorah Khar are no fools. We knew that we would forever be a priority target for the Empire, we knew that the Emperor would want to wipe us from the face of creation for daring to shrug off his rule, and with our world so close to enemy territory we knew that such an attack as this would happen one day. The council had ensured that every male, female and cub be they terran or Kilrathi knew exactly what to do in such a situation. Unscheduled drills were also far from uncommon.

Currently a handful of Kilrathi marines and myself were escorting a group of perhaps twelve eights of civilians to a nearby forest. The trees would provide limited cover and an underground shelter there would keep our people safe long enough for our pilots to drive off the remaining enemies. Hopefully.

We should have had more warning then this. The alarm should have sounded as soon as the Kilrathi force was detected. Instead the only warning that many of us received was the sound of the first building being levelled. If this was the result of incompetence or negligence then I would personally claw out the throat of whichever creature had failed in his duties and led to hundreds of civilian deaths as a result.

I pushed the thought aside. I had more pressing matters to deal with.

"We must keep moving!" I shouted to the crowd. "The enemy are not defeated yet."

With these words, those whom we were guarding seemed to remember that they were in fact in danger. Looks of fear returned and banished the looks of triumph on many of the faces that I could see, and soon we were all running towards the forest.

The presence of terrans among our ranks was not helping. If it had just been Kilrathi then we could reach the shelter in a matter of moments. But terrans are a physically inferior species to Kilrathi and doubly so in terms of speed. We were thus held back considerably. In the terran's defence, they were moving as fast as they could. This defective aspect of their race was not their fault but that of their Gods.

It was hard to keep my eyes facing forward. I kept looking back to the colony, searching with hasty eyes for some indication of its fate. I saw nothing, save for the _Ralatha_ which now was burying itself into the dirt, its bow pointed towards the sky. All else was invisible at this distance. All else that is except for the damage.

The buildings of the colony typically stood out among the green landscape light stars in the night sky. However the still standing buildings wee difficult to make out amongst the smoke, fire and charred wreckage that now laid where the homes of my people should have.

I felt my heart beat faster and the twinge in my fingers as the urge to exact vengeance returned. I put it aside. My h'rai and my people were not lost, and I would make sure they lived through this battle.

I noticed that M'thrak was looking back towards the city almost as much as I was. I could tell that it pained him to run from the enemy rather then fight them. He was brave my son, and showed true promise as both a hunter and a warrior, but he could achieve nothing by fighting other then a fool's death. Perhaps that is too harsh. He is young, and his heart thirsts for battle, but he does not know nearly enough to challenge the Empire. He has too much to learn. Nevertheless, it was pleasing to see that he had developed both bravery and unwavering loyalty to his clan in my absence.

I had missed too much of my offspring's lives.

Forgive me, my mind wanders easily. The forest was now in sight. In the distance I noticed what looked like a second group of refugees making their way towards the forest.

There was a faint sound in the distance. It took me a few seconds to recognise the sound. When I had it locked down, I felt momentarily as if my soul had been ripped from my body. Then sense overcame this foolishness.

"Take Cover!" I shouted as loud as I could, crouching down and raising my weapon as I did so. "Get down!"

A fresh round of nervous sounds emanated from the crowd. Some threw themselves to the floor, others tried to make it to the forest which was still too far away. In retrospect we were lucky to be as far away as we were.

The sound grew much louder. I looked up and was able to see only two fast moving blurs. These were obviously fighters, but it was difficult to determine whether they were Confederate or Imperial.

I received my answer when the two ships reduced their speed. They had done so almost directly above us. I soon found myself looking at two DralthiThese were the modern versions, not the third generation models in the colony's arsenal. This meant that these were imperial ships.

My heart sank as I sat helpless below these vessels. I expected any minute to see bombs descend from the fighters and to see my h'rai consumed by flames.

But it did not happen.

The two ships instead launched missiles into the edges of the forest. Deafening explosions filled the air, and we all soon found pieces of dirt and dead tree raining down on us.

Instinctively I threw myself to the floor when realisation set in. When I lifted my head, I saw that the trees closest to us that had not been destroyed by the blast were now ablaze.

The Dralthi fired again. And again. There was nothing we could do to stop them erecting a wall of fire to block out path. By the time we reached the forest we would have to traverse through an inferno to reach the shelter. The heat resistant marine skin suits might protect me and my comrades, but not one of the civilians could hope to make it, and we would not leave them behind.

One of the Dralthi spun around and flew back towards the city. The other did the same, after firing a few shots into the crows. Three people, two Kilrathi and one terran died as a result of this.

A few angry shouts were hurled at the Dralthi as it withdrew, for what little it is worth. Most however were either paralysed with fear or were lost in confusion, trying to find some tangible option that would lead them to safety and finding nothing.

"On your feet!" One of the other marines shouted, "We must move quickly around the flames. We will be safe if we reach the shelter before the fire."

I had to forcibly lift a number of people to a standing position. Some, mainly terrans (no offence) seemed content to simply cower on the ground. We did not have time for this.

Eventually we were moving again, this time to the right. It was in this direction that I had seen the other group of refugees but now they seemed to have vanished. They must have already vanished into the trees.

No sooner had I made this decision then I saw a figure emerge from the forest. Followed by another, and then several figures emerge red from the forest in rapid succession. They were a fair distance off, but judging by their height I assumed that they were Kilrathi. They seemed to be clad in some sort of grey attire.

Realisation hit my like a claw in the stomach.

"Back" Roared one of the marines, "Get back, away from here! Imperial soldiers are waiting for us in the forest!"

That was all he needed to say. Soon the entire crowd of civilians has turned and was charging back towards the city.

M'thrak did not flee instantly. He spared me one look which was unreadable. I matched it with one which I tried to keep from looking filled with the sorrow I was feeling. I had been reunited with my h'rai less then a day and now I was to be ripped away from them and into the arms of Sivar, to wait for them for many cold, lonely years. At least I hoped it would be for many cold, lonely years.

Eventually, M'thrak turned and led with the others. I turned my attention back towards the enemy soldiers who appeared now to be advancing on us. There were at least five eights of them. There were five of us. We would be hard pressed to stop them in their tracks.

Still it was strange. If they had waited but a little longer then they would have been able to slay us all with ease when we approached. But they didn't, they had revealed themselves and were charging directly into the path of our guns.

What were they doing?

"Ready weapons." I said, I was the highest ranking marine of the five of us and no one challenged my command. "Divert their attention towards us and try and draw them into the forest. Head for the fire."

"For Ghorah Khar!" Someone shouted.

"For Ghorah Khar!" The rest of us echoed. We were still far from defeated, and we were about to prove it.

**Two minutes later**

The first shot came from them.

It was a red streak of light that tore through the air and narrowly missed the helmet of one of my comrades.

"Return fire!"

The shots from our own guns were a somewhat lighter shade of orange. The Confederation weapons that we had been issued worked differently, somehow. I wasn't sure of the details but I did know that they dealt slightly less damage then the Imperial equivalents. The recharge time was slightly shorter however, and they were still powerful enough to penetrate imperial body armour.

The formation they had arranged themselves in made it hard for us to shoot and not hit one of them. Three of the enemy were killed after our first wave. A further two fell on our second.

Finally, one of the enemy soldiers managed to land a successful hit on one of our number. The soldier did not scream, but simply lay almost peaceably on the ground with a smoking hole in his chest. The stench of charred flesh would doubtlessly attract predators to the battlefield come night time.

"You two," I shouted to two soldiers at the rear, "Head into the forest. You," I turned my head to face the final marine, "You and I will lay down suppression fire as we withdraw."

"Yes my Lord."

We stood and fired, not really caring where we aimed so long as it was in the general direction of the enemy.

I noticed one enemy soldier fall, the rest were close now. Too close.

We turned about and made for the forest. The fire had spread considerably in the small time since it had started. The wind had doubtlessly assisted considerably in its growth. I slung my rifle over my shoulder and fired blindly in the direction of the crowd behind me. Red streaks of light were passing inches from me, I was sidestepping and ducking at random, though this could lead me into the path of an incoming shot as easily as it could lead me out of one's path.

To my right I heard a short pained grunt, and then discovered that the soldier that had remained with me had fallen. I cursed momentarily, but then cast the thought from my mind as I passed into the fiery forest.

All gunfire seemed to cease for a moment. I kept moving nonetheless. The enemy's armour would protect them from the flames as easily as mine would. I had no idea where my other two companions were.

I had no idea if my plan had even succeeded. The enemy might simply send in eight or so soldiers to deal with those of us who remained and send the rest to chase down those who had run. The civilians had no weapons and would be slaughtered if the enemy caught up with them.

I had no choice, I could not risk the life of my h'rai. I had to go back and fight.

As I turned I found an Imperial soldier standing before me. I had no time to react before his weapon smashed into my helmet's visor. The material cracked under the impact and the blow knocked me to the floor.

As I fell, my weapon was cast away a distance of a few metres. I unsheathed my claws for all the good it would do, and prepared as best as I could in my shocked condition to strike at the well armoured enemy before me at the same time as he pushed the rifle into the space where my helmet's visor had been.

**To be continued.**


	30. Diversions

**Chapter 31: Diversions**

**Fool's Perspective**

_Confederate spokespersons have denied rumours that Kilrathi forces, freshly regrouped less then a week after the destruction of their command ship, now confirmed as the KIS _Vorghath, _are advancing back through the systems they previously abandoned. Whether this is currently the case or not, it is certain that the Kilrathi will not abandon Vega sector so easily. In spite of this truth however, independent sources within Confed have revealed that there has been no significant redeployment of Confederate warships to that sector. Military spokespeople have neither confirmed nor denied this._

I'm not sure why I was surprised. Psychotic feline mentality presumably dictated that they come back and hit us very, very hard for trashing one of their beloved dreadnoughts, and the simple truth was that there wasn't much Confed could throw in their way. The _Hermes_ and her escorts had been blasted to hell and would be out of the fight for months, the _Invincible_ had apparently already moved out of Brimstone to God only knows where. One too many fleet carriers were lurking in Sol sector which had been as quiet as the grave since the battle of Earth and thus were serving no real purpose there.

You'd think that a near apocalyptic battle which brought the Confederation and pretty much all of humanity to the brink of annihilation would have convinced people of the need for smart leaders who actually knew how wars needed to be fought. If men like Admiral Tolwyn weren't constricted by the pisstake civilian governments then we might be able to do some damage to the enemy as opposed to ourselves.

Barbara Miles' voice continued to echo through the shuttle's passenger area which through some amazing stroke of luck I had all to myself. Leaving me free to wander back and forth through the small space. (I always pace when I think).

It had taken me far longer then I would have liked to get home. One of the shuttles scheduled to take me from Tomayo to Sol was redirected to Port Headland at the last minute, with me in it. They never did tell us why Port Headland was in need of shuttles but I got the feeling it was to do with what I'd just heard on the news. The Kilrathi were on the move once more and Confed was in desperate need of hardware.

That news story had started a train of thought that led to a singular point that I spent a long time trying not to consider. The destruction of the _H'varkann_, the price the men and women of the _Hermes_ carrier group had paid for the salvation of Oasis station, the Kilrathi's retreat. Hell even Torrent's miraculous escape from the enemy. What if it was all for nothing? Was a delay of less then a week of the Kilrathi's ultimate triumph the only thing we'd gained with the death of so many people?

Maybe our expectations and hopes were a bit naive. The dreadnought was after all little more then a large carrier. Destroying one of those wouldn't make much difference to the war on the whole. Would it?

Of course not.

**Nine hours later**

Tiananmen depot wasn't such a bad place. Strategically located in the Axius system at a proximity to the nearby jump points which effectively made it static target practice for any enemy fleets moving from one end to t'other. The smell of engine grease lingered throughout the lower decks and the bar was barely bigger then the _Hermes'_ brig.

Yes in a stunning display of Murphy's law, the fates cast another detour my way when the shuttle I was on was deterred at the last minute. I have no idea why they'd need a shuttle here and to be honest I never thought to wonder why. By this time I was both frustrated and starving and the most pressing thing on my mind was lunch. After that I'd need to call my parents and tell them that assuming the next shuttle didn't get re-directed to Firekka or some equally out of the way place, I'd be a few days later then the few days later I'd originally said I'd be.

Damn shuttles.

As I shouldered my way past the lines of people all crowding around the lift and made my way to the stairs, I couldn't help but wonder if the others were having this problem. Razor and Salamander had caught a different shuttle to Earth but had left at pretty much the same time as me. It wouldn't be surprising if they'd been whisked away to the far reaches of Confederate space. Adish didn't have as far to travel so he might have made it. Torrent's fate was anyone's guess and I didn't have a clue what Scar was doing.

After about twenty minutes of idly climbing up and down assorted flights of stairs I finally managed to track down a restaurant with the somewhat unimaginative name of 'Lance's'. The lunchtime crowd appeared to be dying down and the guy behind the counter gave me a resentful look when I apparently broke him out of some boredom imposed trance by ordering hot food.

I took a table next to a window which showed a handful of motionless stars. There's something about stars which makes it very easy not to think about anything. You look into the void and it steals your mind away, and as often as not it can take something like a scramble alarm to bring it back. (That actually happened once but that's another story).

The face of Barbara Miles relaying more news of the Confederation's latest hardships was pleasantly absent from this restaurant. Instead an almost inaudible jazz tune and the sporadic chatter of the other patrons was the only thing I could hear.

Lunch took a while to arrive, as it so often does in restaurants. I hastily forced it down and was still hungry afterwards but I didn't feel much like getting anything else so I went off in search of a com terminal.

The one I found looked like it had been attacked by some sort of rust-laden swamp beast. The com screen and controls were set in a casing that could conceivably have passed for a trash can and might have exploded if given a solid enough kick.

My parents weren't home so I had to settle for a two minute long, stammer filled apology to their answering machine. A fresh wave of annoyance washed through me at the thought of my shore leave's collection of assorted disasters thus far. Granted Confed's need outweighed any inconvenience that I suffered during time off, but it would take some sort of unfeeling, superhuman beast not to be annoyed wouldn't it?

**Thirteen minutes later**

"Two days!"

"I'm sorry sir but…"

"I don't believe this! You can't tell me that your next shuttle to Earth departs in two days. For Christ's sake, this place is in the middle of a supply route from Sol to Vega sector."

"Yes sir," replied the Ensign in front of me with a barely suppressed snarl, "As you said this station is in the middle of a trade route, however supplies, or personnel as is usually the case in terms of shuttles typically come from Sol, to here, to Vega. Not the other way around."

If I'd been Salamander's age I might have felt an instinctive dislike for what could be interpreted as an insubordinate tone. At the time though all I felt was a curious amusement which was something of a mix of annoyance and absurdity. Like when things go wrong once too often and all you can do is laugh at the fates which are delighting in crapping all over you.

Once I finally stopped giggling I returned my gaze to the Ensign and tried not to feel the numerous stares from other base personnel that were doubtlessly boring into the back of my skull. I kept my voice as calm as possible, this wasn't really her fault after all.

"Can I book passage on that shuttle then?"

"Of course sir." Her tone seemed to have mellowed somewhat as well, "Can I have your name, rank and registration number please?"

"Captain Elias Venner, C88T2Y3."

She swatted her console a few times and made a gesture which might have been a shrug. I'm not entirely sure why.

"Ok, it says here sir that you were redirected here from shuttle 203 from Vespus station. We are permitted to reimburse you by way of free passage on your next flight."

"Thanks."

She swatted the console again and a thin sheet of plastic emerged from a small slot on her desk and she handed it to me.

"Here's your boarding pass sir. If you'd like to speak to the quartermaster on level 5 he'll issue you with a bunk for the next two days."

"Thanks." I said again, trying not to sound too sarcastic.

"Enjoy your stay on Tiananmen depot sir."

I almost snarled.

**Three hours later**

_Feeling lonely? Has fighting for your people kept you from some much needed human contact? If that's the case then…_

"Computer, delete message."

From behind me, someone sniggered. I couldn't much blame them, I'd been known to do the same thing on occasion. When you get an audio message with a seemingly innocent subject line and a supposedly sensual and pathetically fake female voice offers, well, you get the idea. It's not so annoying in the case of traditional text emails but when you've got some digital whore crooning at you in a room full of people it can be something of an embarrassing experience.

I'd left my emails unchecked for about four months now and the vast string of bull shit messages from God only knows who had totalled to about 194. On less busy days onboard the _Hermes_, I'd often wonder how it was that I'd been stuffed on such obscure mailing lists, more often however I'd think about how nice it would be to find whoever put me on such lists and punch them very hard in the face.

I scanned through the list, hoping to find an important email or two amidst the sea of shite but I didn't look very hard, and to be honest the prospect of sifting through 194 emails didn't sound like the wondrous experience that you might expect.

I shut down the terminal and left the other computer using persons to their activities. The next half hour I spent watching a bunch of tugs dragging cargo containers to a transport. I had the feeling these were going to be a long few days.

"Excuse me?"

It took me a few moments to respond as I initially thought the man was talking to someone else. When I turned around I saw a forty something man with a pronounced beard, in what looked like a civilian technician's uniform staring at me.

"Yeah?"

"Your face looks familiar, were you one of those flyboys on the what's it? Um, the _Hermes_?"

I almost sighed, I'd been in a conversations that started with these kind of lines already, although the other guy didn't recognise me until my face showed up for two seconds on the news on the first shuttle mishap.

"Yes."

"Oh." He paused and stared at me for a minute like I was some sort of disappointing museum exhibit.

"It has to be said," he muttered whilst moving to the window, "You guys did a pretty good job out there. That's the kind of thing we need right about now."

Something about the way he said 'pretty good', and for that matter the words themselves bugged me. Over one thousand confederation soldiers were died in that battle, 'pretty good' doesn't come close to doing justice to their sacrifice. Then again, I doubted there was much that could.

"Thanks." I said after a moment, not entirely sure how to handle this conversation.

"Well you've got to admit, things ain't been all that peachy for the Confederation as of late have they? I mean, as if the battle of Earth wasn't bad enough, now we're being beaten back from all angles ain't we boy?"

I turned to glare at my new conversation partner with barely concealed dislike. You'd have to be deaf not to hear the scorn in this guy's voice, and I was beginning to get a pretty good idea of where that scorn was directed.

"You don't want to believe everything you hear in the news." I said through slightly clenched teeth.

"Oh sure, of course. The news don't tell the whole story does it? You need to think about these things. See through all the bull you see? What I see though ain't pretty. You boys and girls ain't doing too good in most places. Granted you managed to actually do your jobs in Brimstone, but that's a fluke isn't it?"

That was more of an accusation then a question. The next things I felt were, quite understandably, anger and disgust. Who the hell did this blinkered fuckwit think he was?

"Listen," I said, making no attempt to hide the scorn in my voice this time, "If you think you can do a better job out there then why don't you join the academy and stop whining to me about our defects. Failing that, why don't you shut the fuck up about things you don't know one damn thing about?"

Heads were turning our way. The man's face twisted into an expression that for a moment made me think that he was going to take a swing at me.

"If you'd done your jobs right," He said instead, "Then maybe the Earth wouldn't have got punched full of holes. Maybe my wife wouldn't have got killed if you'd just done your fucking jobs right."

That shut me up for a few seconds. I was tempted to say that I was sorry for his loss, but I really wasn't. In spite of his loss, this guy still didn't know a fucking thing about war, and he was still a loud mouthed asshole.

"If stupid shits like you had actually listened to us instead of believing that the bloodthirsty, greater-then-thou Kilrathi actually wanted to live in peace with us then we'd have been able to finish this war the easy way. But no, you just sat with your heads buried in the sand, mothballed half the damn fleet, turned your fucking backs on us and then ran crying to us when the cats went on the warpath again. If the government and its gaggle of civilian sheep, that's people like you by the way, had let us do our jobs from the start then we wouldn't be in this mess would we?"

His face had been getting progressively redder throughout my elaborate comeback. I'm surprised he didn't try and punch me there and then.

"You little fucking…"

"Hey Ormerod!" Said a third figure who was advancing on the technician with unfriendly eyes. "Isn't there somewhere else you need to be?"

Ormerod started defiantly at the newcomer, (a marine judging from the uniform), but not for long. With a rushed, hatful glance at me he made a somewhat speedy departure.

"Fucking idiot." I muttered to myself.

"You said it," said the newcomer, still observing Ormerod's retreat. "Don't let him get to you. Man's an idiot, through and through. Gives that speech to every new pilot who lands here. He likes to hate and doesn't like to face facts."

Any other day, I might have sympathised. But with the comedy of errors that had haunted my shore leave and my sympathy for Confed's new shuttle redirecting policy all but gone, I wasn't in a sympathetic mood.

"I'm Sergeant Luke Parson." He said, extending a hand as he spoke. "Head of the marine detachment for this dive."

"Captain Elias Venner" I replied, extending my own hand, "Everyone calls me Fool."

"Is that a callsign or an assertion."

I spat out a short lived laugh.

"Both, as often as not."

"Yeah well, I'm not one to judge. Me and my men are only here because we got pretty banged up in our Repleetah days and they've put us out to a floating pasture."

"You were on Repleetah?"

"Yeah, got wounded in the days when the supply ships were still going back and forth."

I made a facial expression which was half an acknowledgment, half, well, nothing. Repleetah was to the marines what the battle of Earth was to pilots (and any marines who survived the experience.) Bloody and pointless.

It has to be said though, this guy didn't have any obvious wounds on him. Then again it wasn't obvious to anyone who didn't know that I'd lost my arm.

After a few minutes of what I think was contemplation Parson shrugged and let loose a smile of sorts.

"Anyway, come this way and you can down a few with my boys and me. Maybe let us know what it was really like at Brimstone."

"Sure," I replied, "Lead the way."

**To be continued**


	31. Eye of the Storm

**Chapter 32: Eye of the Storm**

**Torrent's perspective**

Dirt and debris from the levelled buildings was being thrown backwards in the wake of the assault vehicle which was moving at doubtlessly unsafe speeds towards the city. The _Ralatha_, or what was left of it was now standing almost on its tail. Its engines were still operational and the ship was making a slow ascent into the clouds, the strain that this impromptu sky ride was putting on the hull had to be considerable. Also the flames from the gaping hull breach in its bow were spreading over some of the exposed areas of the forward section where the hull had fallen off.

In space, even the most violent explosions die off pretty quickly with no oxygen to fuel them. In an atmosphere, explosions are amplified considerably and burning ships don't typically stay ships for very long. It was pretty remarkable that the _Ralatha_ had lasted as long as it had.

Unfortunately, it meant that when that Ralatha finally went off, the explosion would be huge. We needed to get as far away from it as possible before the reactor finally gave in. I just hoped that the thing would still be in the air when it finally blew.

"Relax!" Bellowed a happy looking marine who was seated to my left, the only human in his platoon by the looks of things, "Kath'rak's never dropped anyone yet."

As if on cue, one of the transport's wheels ran over a particularly large piece of debris and the entire vehicle jolted to the left at a sharp angle, I lurched forward involuntarily and was caught a second later by the safety harness. The transport eventually began to wrest itself out of the awkward angle it had gotten into and the right hand wheels, slowly at first but then at a deeply unpleasant speed, crashed back onto the road. Flinging me back into my seat as they did so.

My stomach responded to all this with an angry rumbling. In the last fifteen minutes I'd been flung out of a bomber, had to over-ride the safeties on my ejection pod to get to the ground in time to get the hell away from the _Ralatha_, had to endure the painful shift in decent velocity as I hit the pod's deceleration thrusters at the last minute, enjoyed the sensation of plunging into a solid stone surface at a speed slow enough to save me from broken bones or blood loss, but fast enough to knock the air out of my lungs. After that I'd been ripped out of my ejection pod and literally hoisted into one of five escaping marine recon vehicles, now I was being jostled around incessantly. These things may very well keep me alive, but they weren't doing my digestive system much good.

I kept my gaze at the metal floor below me. It was one of the few things I could see that wasn't a blur. I could feel the bile writhing in my gut but it didn't seem to want to escape just yet.

"Don't worry we're nearly there." The terran marine said, shifting as far away from me as he could, presumably afraid of getting vomit on his boots.

One of the Kilrathi parted with a disgusted grunt as he presumably realised that I was on the verge of hurling. No one else seemed to care.

"So what's…"

The next thing any one of us, hell the next thing anyone on the planet probably heard was the _Ralatha_ exploding.

A deafening boom followed by a drawn out screech sent everyone's hands flying to their ears. The assault vehicle swerved as the driver recoiled under the pain of the noise. Kilrathi hearing is a hell of a lot more sensitive then human's and it's a wonder that the assembled marines were able to sit through the whole experience with little more then an occasional pained grunt.

There was a blinding light from the direction of the _Ralatha_ that hurt my eyes even though I wasn't looking in its direction. When it finally died down to a level that I could look at it, I saw two burning _Ralatha _segments. They looked more like fireballs then debris. The good news is that the explosion didn't seem to have caused any significant damage to the landscape. The flaming pieces would land in a levelled section of the colony so they couldn't do much more damage. Hopefully.

**Twenty minutes later**

My stomach was still churning in the depths of the air-raid centre/CIC that was buried about half a mile under the surface. Nervous colonists were sat in a series of cavernous halls, some staring intently at the ceiling as if it would reveal some clues as to what was happening on the surface.

I was staring intently at the floor, trying to focus on the featureless grey floor and keeping as still as I could in the hopes of not angering my gut further. There were no available fighters left so there was nothing I could do except sit and wait.

I had no idea what was happening above. Things had been pretty quiet so far however so with the Ralatha gone there might not be much left to do except mop up the strays.

Then again, there was no telling how many marines the enemy might have landed on the surface. But still, if we could take out the enemy's remaining fighters then any marines would be cut down like weeds, no matter how many of them there were. (If we could take out the fighters.)

I'd cast a few glances around the shelters when I arrived for Z'ratmak or his h'rai. No sign of any of them. That meant nothing however. This was a big shelter, they could be anywhere and I hadn't looked too hard. Even if they weren't here they might be in one of the three other shelters in and around the colony.

I hoped they were alright, but that's all I could do which in the grand scheme of things meant less then nothing. I needed to be in the air, fighting to give them whatever chance I could to stay alive, not sitting down here in a worthless queasy slumber.

The sun had been on the verge of vanishing over the horizon when I moved into the subterranean stronghold. Earlier Z'ratmak had informed me, (not asked) that I was to accompany him and his h'rai on a journey to a favoured point on one of the mountain's overlooking the village after they'd slept off the evening meal. The view was supposed to be breathtaking and apparently there was no shortage of game to bring home for tomorrow's feast.

I'd been looking forward to it, it was about then that it actually occurred to me that in spite of the annoying psychological evaluation that I'd had forced upon me, I was also on shore leave. I thought I'd finally get a break from killing and maybe even the nightmares. I thought I'd get to unwind for a while, I wasn't expecting to be hurled right back into the firing line.

But, if nothing else, at least I'd taken out the _Ralatha_. That was something of a consolation.

"You know, considering you just torched a Kilrathi cap-ship and maybe saved half the colony, you don't look too pleased."

I turned my head, slowly, towards the sound of the voice. I found myself staring at the face of the human marine I'd been sat next to in the assault vehicle earlier. He still seemed pretty chipper. I couldn't understand that.

"Was it enough?" I asked bleakly, my voice coming out hoarse.

"Time will tell," He replied, sitting himself down next to me. His chameleon like battle armour darkening somewhat to match the areas now covered by my shadow. "But there's nothing to be heard up there, no tremors, no explosions, no-one banging the door down. I think we might just get through this with our asses intact."

If he was a pilot on the _Hermes_ he'd be lynched ten times over for such blatant and moronic tempting of fate. We're a pretty superstitious lot I guess, but when you hear idiots chanting about victory in the middle of battle or making foolish predictions about how the future will play out which are based on nothing, you often have good reason to wonder how long that person has left. Not that those of us who don't tempt fate are spared from one of the large number of painful ends however.

"Hear anything from the CIC?"

"Nah, they won't let us in there. Commander Gregory probably thinks that…" He cleared his throat and mimicked a stereotypical upper class British accent, "Such barbaric and uncouth ruffians such as myself would surely start firing at the computers and try to devour his command staff."

I almost laughed, then thought better of it and returned to staring at the same spot on the deck plating as my gut groaned anew.

"So what's next for your team?" I asked.

"Well for now we're on guard duty, if the enemy break through the door it'll be the job of me and my three furry friends to keep them away from the colonists."

"Just the four of you?"

"We're pretty short handed. We lost contact with a lot of our people who were heading to the shelter in the _Jolvark_ forest."

_Z'ratmak?_

I pushed the thought aside. I didn't know what Z'ratmak had been doing and I wasn't going to jump to conclusions.

"…Also, Confed never thought of Ghorah Khar as all too important in the grand scheme of things. Ever since the Kilrathi bugged out of Enigma we've had marines getting shipped out of here to God only knows where, and the Kilrathi aren't helping. They keep chanting about how they can handle their own world without terran marines making them feel like prisoners on their own world."

"Really?"

"Well, truth to tell that's really just a few malcontents. Still, before today without imperial destroyers coming through the sky a lot of the colonists were beginning to wonder how necessary a Confederate presence still was. If it wasn't for the attack I might have agreed with them."

A short lives buzz echoed momentarily in the shelter, it was followed by a faint crash and a light shuddering that caused more then a few uneasy murmurs.

A sound like that meant one of two things. Either a Confederate or Kilrathi fighter had just plunged into the ground over the bunker. There was no way to tell which it was.

"I guess its not over yet." The marine said in the most serious voice I'd heard from him so far.

The unnerved murmurs died down somewhat. There was no shortage of children who were in tears. I could imagine how terrifying this had to be for them, locked away in this desolate cave, not knowing if they'd ever be able to go home, not knowing if the enemy was going to charge screaming down the stairs and start firing into the crowd. That was a terrifying prospect for anyone at the best of times, doubly so at least for children.

"I never caught your name." The marine said after a few moments. I turned to face him, my stomach slightly more peaceful now.

"Ryuku Katori." I replied, "Callsign's 'Torrent'."

"Tim Gardener." He said, extending a hand, "Don't have a callsign really but the other guys in my unit normally call me whelp, clawless freak, churnah, target practice, that sort of thing."

I had to laugh at that. Z'ratmak had unleashed similar taunts at no shortage of bumbling crewmembers onboard the _Hermes_ when he was serving onboard her.

"So, were you just transferred here?"

"No, I'm on, well, _was_ meant to be on shore leave."

He spat out a short laugh,

"Hell of a time you picked to come to Ghorah Khar."

"Just unlucky I guess." I said, almost shuddering at the memory of where I'd been before I came here.

"Well, though I'm loathed to lend compliments to a pilot, your lack of luck is lucky for us. Without you that destroyer might still be up there."

"Nah," I shrugged, "If I didn't get it, someone else would have."

"I'm not so sure. We're not over furnished…"

"Attention." Boomed a voice over the loudspeaker which made everyone in the room jump, "All available pilots are to report to the CIC immediately. I repeat, all available pilots are to report to the CIC immediately."

Another round of uneasy murmurs sounded in the chamber. I stared at the ceiling for a moment before pushing myself to my feet and trying to recall where the CIC was.

"Shit. Guess there's more of the fuckers."

"Guess so." I replied. "Listen, thanks for the lift earlier."

"Pffft, think nothing of it. Uh, I'll see you when you get back, maybe. Watch your back out there."

**Three minutes later**

As it turns out, I was the only available pilot. Nevertheless Commander Cunningham seemed pretty pleased that there was at least someone.

"Here's the situation captain," He said in a surprisingly similar voice to the one Tim had mimicked, "The _TCS Carnthranizdolles, _a _Fraltha_ class cruiser that defected to the Confederation shortly after the battle of Earth has recently arrived in system.This cruiser has been reconfigured to serve as a light carrier. There's currently a mixed fighter compliment of terran and Kilrathi ships onboard. Four of their pilots were wounded in a recent skirmish with enemy forces and now they have less pilots then they do fighters. So, I'm transferring you temporarily to the cruiser."

I nodded, I can't say I was too pleased with the prospect of going to another Kilrathi ship, but tried to reassure myself that these Kilrathi were the good guys.

"What's the status on the enemy sir?" I asked.

"The last enemy fighters have retreated back to this." Cunningham pointed to a large red blip on a smallish looking map screen. "Judging from the size of it we believe it to be a snakier class carrier. We've also detected at least four marine transports. If we can take these out then we can blast their offensive capacity to dust."

That sounded good, but converted cruisers could only manage meagre fighter compliments at the best of times, and Confed had a total of two cruisers in this system. We were at a sever disadvantage against a carrier.

"I won't lie" Cunningham continued, "We're in a bad situation here, so we're going for all or nothing. The _Carnthranizdolles _and the _Caledonia_ are going to head straight for that carrier. Their combined firepower combined with a few torpedoes might just get the job done."

"I understand sir. Is it likely we'll receive any further re-enforcements?"

"No Captain, I'm afraid not. The closest ship is three days away, and it's a Drayman. Do you have any further questions?"

"No sir."

"Very well then. A shuttle is waiting in hanger one. Lieutenant Powell will show you the way. Good luck."

**To be continued.**


	32. End of Round One

**Chapter 33: End of Round One**

**Z'ratmak's perspective**

I flinched instinctively at the sound of the shot, expecting immediately to feel the heat clawing at my flesh, burning my fur to cinders and sending me to Sivar in a momentary fit of agony.

At first I could not determine what was happening. I was still dazed from the impact to my face. My thoughts seemed to be following the actions around me at a distance of two paces. It was several moments after hearing the agonised roar that followed the sound of the weapon discharge that I realised it was not mine.

I turned my head to my attacker, only to find my eyes no longer obstructed by the sight of a gun barrel. Instead my enemy was flailing madly, seemingly trying to reach for something on his back. His weapon shot out once or twice into the trees, no doubt in his agony his fists had closed involuntarily, his finger closing around the trigger as they did so.

A bright orange flash of light buried itself in the back of the enemy's head and he immediately collapsed to the dirt. The appetising scent of his superheated brain lingered on the breeze for a few moments and as I slowly recovered my wits I made it a point to enjoy that smell.

"Are you alright my Lord?" Asked an unfamiliar voice from somewhere above me. I looked around and saw a few paces away a Kilrathi marine clad in the protective armour of the Confederation. He was, presumably, one of the marines I'd previously ordered to fall into the forest. Of his comrade, or mine for that matter there was no sign.

"I am fine." I replied, images of my mate and cubs in my mind hastening my return to consciousness. The smell of burning wood on the breeze had much the same effect. Weapon's fire had set alight to the forest and now that fire was spreading. With no one available to control this blaze the forest would be nothing but ashes by tomorrow morning.

I chased off a momentary image of me and Vra'kara vanishing into this forest as cublings, entire days spent in innocent frivolity. Now it was going to be destroyed. The loss of it weighed heavier on me then it rightfully should have considering the circumstances.

"We must strike down any remaining Imperial soldiers." I said, doubting that the two of us would make much difference against the force we faced, "we need to give our people time enough to reach the shelters."

"I understand sir. And the others?"

"We cannot wait. Come."

We set out of the burning forest and back into the open. Ideally we would have used the tree line for cover but the smoke from burning wood was making the air un-breathable. We could not hope to stay in there without inviting suicide.

No sooner had we exited the trees then to my utter astonishment I saw two Imperial marines barge out of the trees not five meters from us. Their visors were up and they were hunched over, gawping at the floor and gasping for breaths of unspoiled air. Their weapons dangled carelessly from their paws. I truly almost laughed at the sight.

_Why were their visors up? _This was my first of many questions on the subject, _Their battle armour would cleanse the air they breathed of poisonous smoke._

With a silent nod to my comrade, we raised our weapons, aimed for the heads and fired. Air soon became a somewhat less pressing priority for the two soldiers.

"Unbelievable." Muttered the soldier next to me in quiet tones, twitching his head back and forth as he spoke. "What fool of a commander has trained these troops?"

"I suspect that these were roo-" I cut myself off, not wishing to use terran mannerisms here, "cublings, soldier's on their first mission. Still, I have never seen soldiers so inept."

The Empire was not above throwing unprepared warriors in the face of the enemy. It was a fact that many Kilrathi fighters were eliminated by vastly smaller terran forces simply because the terrans had, to quote Ryuku, 'earned their wings' whereas the Imperial equivalents couldn't tell the wings from the weapons. There were exceptions of course, but not many.

The same, albeit to a lesser extent, was true for marines. The Empire had been known to cast unprepared soldiers into battle against trained terran marines. Several young warriors from virtually all battalions, seeing unimpressive looking opponents only half their size often make fatal errors based on overconfidence and a lack of thought. But the two enemies that we had just shot were less vigilant then a sleeping Utara. Any self respecting Imperial instructor would have ordered their deaths for such stupidity long before they were let loose on the battlefield.

Something was not right here.

However, the corpses on the floor were not entirely typical of the opponents we faced. From what I had seen so far, many of the warriors seemed reasonably confident, if just somewhat – 'green', as you might say. Perhaps this was simply a case of idiots as an exception. Though ultimately this did not matter much.

With my comrade… I grow weary of referring to him as such, it sounds awkward. I was later to learn that his name was Halgak. In any case, whilst he still scoured the immediate area with his eyes, I lifted a pair of terran standard vision enhancer goggles to my eyes and scanned the surrounding area.

I noticed the group of whom my h'rai was a part, still running towards the shelter. It looked like they still had a fair way to go, but they were making good speed. Also it looked very much like they were no Imperial marines chasing them. I think they were still focusing on us. Understandable considering we'd taken out several of their ranks. Vengeance had to be satisfied, though I had no intention of accommodating the enemy in this way.

As I returned the goggles to my belt, another two Imperial marines burst out of the forest, though these were infinitely better trained then the first two. They emerged with their visors down, their weapons at the ready and they immediately began scanning the area around the forest upon exiting it.

Halgak and I were fortunate enough to be close to a sloped area of land which provided limited cover. Gunfire soon began to chase us to this cover, and our first few shots were blind ones, the laser discharges too numerous to allow for proper aim.

With each shot their aim was becoming more accurate. We had to act, now.

As if sensing my thought, Halgak rolled to the left, firing as he did so. This presented his body to the enemy, which as he hoped drew their fire towards him, allowing me to make my move.

I raised myself and fired at the enemy whilst they were firing at the still rolling Halgak. After two missed shots, I burned a hole in one of the Imperial soldier's ribs. He fell over and howled his last agonised breaths to the wind. The second one went down as he turned his weapon back towards me, but it was too little, too late. He died instantly with a burning hole in his face.

Halgak hastily stood up and fired off a few more shots into the still howling Kilrathi. The marine soon fell silent, but I did not doubt that his comrades would have heard his wail and would be moving to investigate.

"Fall back!" I shouted to Halgak, making no attempt to conceal our doubtlessly exposed presence. "Run!"

No sooner had I spoken the last word then the fairly quiet yet all too familiar sound of Imperial gunfire started to sound. Streaks of red light began to chase us as we ran back towards the city, firing almost blindly back in the direction of the burning forest as we did so.

Everything was happening too quickly to make a definite count, but judging from the frequency of gunshots and some half seen figures that were shooting at us, I estimate that there were at least five Kilrathi pursuing us.

I searched for any available cover, but all I could see for meters was relatively flat grassland punctured in some places by scorch marks from weapon's fire. The only protection we had came from the reasonably sizable distance between us and the attackers. This was a poor substitute however.

A sound akin to a crash of metal and a pained growl to my right told me that Halgak had taken a hit. I flicked my head in his direction and saw him fall to his knees, clutching at a steaming hole in his leg with one paw whilst trying desperately to fire more shots off in the direction of the enemy.

I stopped running, dropped down and fired into the line of enemy troops. They were closer now, and their shots were growing closer by the moment. Our own rushed fire was meeting with little success. I did not believe that we would be survive here. But we had to buy our people whatever time we could. As long as we held the Imperial marines here, they could not intercept the colonists on their way to the shelter. (If fate favoured us). We had been caught by surprise, and Sivar only knew where our already thin forces were spread. For all I knew there may already be Imperial troops moving through the city.

_If they are there then the fighters will strike them down. _I told myself again as I continued to fire.

Over the noise of the gunfire I thought I heard a slight whistling sound, but it was gone as soon as it arrived and was not significant enough to be worth my attention. At least that is how it was until the first of the explosions broke out across the line of what was now seven enemy soldiers.

My first thought was that a passing fighter had unleashed a basilisk missile into the enemy, but it soon occurred to me that no matter how intense the fire-fight, I would have heard the noise generated by the engines and checked to determine whose side the fighter was on.

Realisation still hadn't struck by the time that the sound of the second explosion tore through the surroundings. Whatever had caused it had by the looks of things struck an imperial soldier. There was nothing left of him save the tiny, charred segments of flesh and bone which rained down over the battlefield.

I resisted the urge to look around and see what form this new friendly addition to the battle would take. But turning one's head away from an enemy that was shooting at you was something done by Kilrathi as stupid as the inept "plebes" (One of Fool's less then endearing terms for first year academy cadets), as the one's me and Halgak had shot earlier.

The line was becoming disorganised as a result of several warriors forming it exploding. Some attempted to fall back into the forest, only to think better of it when they felt the intense heat. Other broke off to the left or right. I managed to down one of the soldiers who stood his ground and fought. His lack of movement allowing me to perfect my aim after a few failed shots.

Another enemy marine was claimed by an explosion from what I then came to recognise as a relatively low yield surface to surface missile. Those that were still alive were now well into a hasty retreat. Their running forms became less and less recognisable as they moved along the tree line.

When I felt it was safe, I made my way over to Halgak and at the same time cast a look behind me. In the distance I noticed a small looking grey patch in the sprawling green field before me. No doubt one of the colony's ground assault vessels. It seemed to be heading in our direction.

Halgak made a noble attempt to stand before I reached him, it was not long however before the damage to his hind leg sent him crashing back to the floor. He parted with a single growl which was as much in fury as in pain. I could appreciate his frustration, but aggravating his wound would not help anyone.

"Remain still." I commanded when I reached him. "Persist in this folly and you'll find yourself in need of a new limb."

"That might not be a deterrent my lord." He replied through gritted fangs, "A new fresh limb, though unsteady would likely serve me better in this battle then this useless piece of meat."

I had known marines who had grown such attachment to their limbs. (I cannot help but wonder why humans apologise for puns), anyway, when they are lost such marines mourn their missing arms or legs for months, often letting it interfere with their focus and endangering their entire squad as a result. It was refreshing to see such disregard for a non important piece of the self in the face of a greater need.

I told Halgak so, he managed a brief hint of a grin before hissing in sudden pain once again. After that we both watched the burning trees until the screech of a decelerating vehicle appeared from behind us.

There were four marines, two terran, two Kilrathi in the vehicle. The terrans raised their guns and bellowed their triumph as they came to a stop beside us. The Kilrathi manning the missile turret also looked pleased. The remaining Kilrathi had vacated the vehicle and was already moving towards Halgak. This was somewhat unnerving considering he was the driver, but the assault vehicle came to a graceful stop despite his absence.

"Grimes, Ado," He roared, almost distantly, "Make yourselves useful and clear some space." He then gave me the quickest salute imaginable to me before gesturing at Halgak's shoulders. I nodded and together we hoisted him into the rear section of the idling war machine.

Within moments we met up with the crowd of colonists that I had been escorting less then an hour ago. I soon noticed Vra'kara and my cubs. More then anything I wanted to go over to them, but I knew that I had to stay vigilant until they reached the shelter. I couldn't help but notice that all of them, even M'thrak seemed as surprised by my return as they were relieved. Though this may not be an all too unreasonable response considering the odds we faced, it was still a little unnerving to know that my h'rai had been bracing themselves for my death.

Relief, in part came from the fact that the sky was suspiciously devoid of fighters, suggesting that they were not needed to provide ground cover presently. Or alternatively that they'd all been shot down though I did not entertain this thought.

Alas, this became less of a relieving realisation when I returned to the shelter and learned that those fighters were all heading off to engage an incoming Snakier class carrier and troop ships. What meagre hopes of this battle being all but over were promptly incinerated. This battle had only just begun.

**To be continued**


	33. When the wall fell

**I know my updates on this website come with the same freqeuncy of solar eclipses, and for that I appologise. Same story, forgetfulness, uni stuff and a general lack of enthusiasm. In any case, thanks to anyone whose read and commented, and I hope you enjoy the next batch of chapters.**

**Chapter 33 ( I think)**

**When the Wall Fell **

Torrent's Perspective

"Relax Holly, we've been in tighter spots then this before right?"  
"I know," Came the despondent response from the Lieutenant sitting a few meters away near a parked Grikath, "Doesn't mean I have to feel any better about this one though."

His friend raised his arms to the ceiling dramatically.  
"Christ man, I don't get you. We've all done the lament before the dawn routine and its grown old. Yes, we may die. Big deal, get over it."

I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as I listened to these words. Finding pilots who were unafraid of death because they didn't think it would ever happen to them was common enough, though finding someone who genuinely didn't care about whether they lived or not was something much rarer, and in retrospect Its likely that those weren't the man's true feelings.  
"Easy for you to say Nate, unfortunately most of us aren't as far gone as you yet."  
"Sucks to be you then."  
"Yeah, I guess it does. It must be nice not to have any worries or anything to fight for."

The briefest hint of an irate twitch passed over Nate's face, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared and he replaced it with the careless grin that he'd been wearing before.  
"Ah don't give me that Hol. I'm just saying that when you think about it there's not a great deal to worry about. I mean…"  
"I've heard this speech."  
"…I mean if I get torched out there, then I get to die safe in the knowledge that I went out with dignity or honour or some such. I've only got a handful of seconds of the void or the flames consuming my devilishly handsome self to worry about. After that it's all gone, the war, the angst, the snoring. I reappear in another life as some kind of lusty millionaire long after the war's over and spend my days complaining about the lack of excitement in my life to my seventeen concubines."

Despite her best efforts, Holly's despondence shattered and for a few seconds she laughed. Nate sat back on his hands and grinned in short lived triumph.  
"You've got it all planned out haven't you?"  
"Yep. And if we survive, which we will by the way for I have foreseen it, then there'll be alcohol and frivolity aplenty upon our return. Who knows, I might even hit it off with that cute Asian female that's staring at us." He turned to face me and shrugged his shoulders. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or get angry so I just turned my head away.

A few minutes later everyone started to stand up. I wasn't sure why at first but doing likewise seemed like a good idea. I turned to where everyone seemed to be facing and noticed that the ship's Wing Commander, (noticeable by the elaborate flight suit) entered the deck. We saluted as the Kilrathi commander hastily made his way to his fighter. When he reached it he turned to face us.

"I shall keep this brief." He said, his voice was impatient and the helmet in his paws twitched as if in protest for not being on his head. He wanted to be out there fighting. "Sivar tests us this day. There is a force of traitors approaching our colony as you well know. A force of those who have betrayed the true heart of a Kilrathi that beats in the people of Ghorah Khar. Remain vigilant and fight with skill and honour. Do this and we shall send to Sivar a gift of dishonourable slaves in the Afterworld."

An enthusiastic roar from Kilrathi and humans alike was his response. I staid silent. I'd heard such a speech before. It was almost identical and it had been said by the Commander of the KIS Vorghath to his Bridge crew moments before the Hermes attacked. My right arm started to shake, followed by my left. I quickly focused on breathing steadily and pictured the burning Ralatha that I'd destroyed only a few hours ago and the shakes receded, a bit.

"To battle fellow warriors." Said the Kilrathi Commander. Bows and salutes answered him and then the pilots were moving towards their ships. Instead of the deck crew rolling step ladders up to the fighters, the pilots had to take their own flimsy looking ladder from the side of the deck and make their own way inside. These were then kicked carelessly to the deck.

The incoming Imperial ships had launched a first wave to inflict some damage on us before the main assault began, these were about twenty minutes away. This was more then enough time for us to head out and get in formation but in the eyes of no shortage of the pilots that had been assembled on the flight deck, I could see that they wanted, or perhaps needed to be out in space, ready and waiting to meet the Empire head on. At least half of the Carnthranizdolles' pilots were fighting for their home world, I could only imagine how that must have felt, but I could tell that sitting on the deck and waiting for the enemy was not what they wanted to be doing.

It wasn't what I wanted to be doing either. As I lowered myself into the cockpit of the Thunderbolt I felt something which I'd really only felt once before when I awoke in the Infirmary of the Hermes after the battle at Brimstone. It was the sensation of being home when you were certain you'd never see it again. Though in reality it had only been about a week, it felt like a lifetime since I'd last sat in a Confederation fighter. Being back filled me with a sense of belonging and even a sense of power that I could only hope I'd get to enjoy another day.

Interestingly however, the fact that the Hermes had triumphed despite being outnumbered and outgunned didn't give me any confidence that this battle could turn out the same way. But somehow that didn't matter to me as much this time.

**Twenty Minutes Later**

There were no bombers in the enemy first wave, it was a mixture of fourth generation Dralthi and Sartha. The Dralthi were targeting us while the Sartha targeted the turrets on the cruisers.

I let loose a volley into a wing of three Sartha that were closing in on the Caledonia and the portside wingman promptly broke in half. These older Kilrathi fighters were like cabbages when a Thunderbolt's weapons crashed down on them. That wasn't to say they weren't nimble however. Hitting them was normally next to impossible. These Sartha were aiming at stationary turrets however, meaning that they had to fly reasonably straight which in turn meant that they were easier to kill. The cruisers were taking out as many as we were.

I swung my ship around to face the Dralthi that had appeared on my tactical display. It was in a wing of two that were landing shot after shot on a Jalkehi. A Hellcat was taking the occasional pot shot at the wingman but these shots were few and far between. He was afraid of hitting his comrade, and as a result his target saw little reason to worry about him.

That was at least until the Hellcat's pilot saw fit to send a missile up his tailpipe. The Dralthi spun away, its exhaust venting flames. The Hellcat chased after it, the pilot firing a little more frequently now. I closed on the second Dralthi which released a missile of its own. The warhead struck the Jalkehi and a lot of debris from the fighter's rear section fell away.

I didn't have time for anything else, so I prepped an Imrec and fired. The image in my targeting computer turned a bright shade of yellow and a wave of gunfire soon started flying in my direction from the doubtlessly pissed off Kilrathi pilot I'd just attacked.

I returned fire, and with his shields and hull already weakened it was a short fire fight. With my forward shield barely dropping below 40 the ship in front of me ceased to be.  
"What's your status?" I asked the damaged Jalkehi.  
"Utter shit." Came the response from the (I was surprised to see) human pilot. "My engines are fried and this piece of shit cat box is falling apart on me. I'm going to have to eject."

_Goddammit._

"Understood."  
I closed the com and started searching for my next target.

Abruptly my com screen filled with static. Presumably a pilot with a damaged com system was attempting to broadcast their epitaph. I didn't know if it was from a friendly or a hostile ship. I hated it when this happened.  
"Mayday! Mayday! This is the TCS Caledonia. Our reactor has been hit. Two Dralthi had torpedoes. We are going do…"

An all too familiar white flash engulfed the space around me and abruptly our already bleak chances of survival took a spectacular nose dive. I sat motionless for a few moments, disbelieving partly at the loss of one of our cruisers to a wing of Dralthi, and partly at how the same Kilrathi who we'd been cursing as woefully inept earlier had just suckered us with this deception.  
"You fools!" Howled the commander of the Carnthranizdolles over the com, "Ghorah Khar will burn because of your ineptitude!"

I dragged myself out of my stunned stupor and found vengeance in the form of a Sartha. The ship was coming straight at me from behind, unloading shot after shot into my rear shields. Its course was perfectly straight however, and a few shots from my rear turret clawed through it's considerably weaker shields. The fighter began to drift harmlessly after a lucky shot took out the cockpit. I think it was later finished off by a Gratha.  
"Attention all ships!" Bellowed First Fang Kulron Nar Eloy "Focus your fire on all remaining Dralthi. We must not allow the Carnthranizdolles to fall."

He didn't need to tell us twice. At least two Dralthi were incinerated in the next two minutes. The larger-then-usual explosion from one suggesting that there was indeed a torpedo onboard.

The enemy fighters were beginning to wear a bit thin. Most of them had fallen to our superior numbers and firepower already, but their mission had certainly been a success and the honored dead who had sent a Confederation capitol ship to the grave would surely be hailed as heroes gone to Sivar.

I shot yet another Sartha off the back of another Thunderbolt which moments later eliminated the last Dralthi in the Kilrathi's first wave. The last three enemy stragglers turned tail and fled back towards their carrier where another fifty odd undamaged fighters crewed by eager enemy pilots waited to tear us to pieces. There were only twenty one of our own fighters left in a workable condition. The others having been destroyed or damaged beyond repair. As Fool might say, we were screwed.

After a few moments of inactivity in which we all just stared at the twisted heap of metal which used to be the TCS Caledonia, the Carnthranizdolles' commander appeared once more on the com. He seemed marginally calmer now.  
"Attention fighters. We have perhaps two eights of minutes to rearm a number of fighters. Landing instructions will be transmitted to…"

A short burst of static and the next thing we knew Commander Cunningham's face had replaced the Kilrathi Commander's. He did not look pleased.  
"Attention all ships, this is Ghorah Khar C&C. Report back to the colony for repairs and rearming. We're switching to plan B, but we don't have a lot of time to prepare. Move quickly people."

Plan B? What the hell was that? From Cunningham's tone during the briefing he gave me it seemed that this was our best and more importantly last chance to save the colony. The small sliver of hope that had all but died with the Caledonia rekindled slightly with this news, though I had no idea what this new plan was, and when I found out then I wished with an almost fanatical fervor that it hadn't come to such measures.

The Carnthranizdolles was not a particularly fast ship, it was taking it a long while to turn around. Even when it did it would still not be able to outrun the hordes of bombers and fighters that had now stopped waiting and were making their way towards us. After a few minutes it began to look doubtful that we'd get to try this plan B at all.

Then we all heard something that we didn't want to. The Kilrathi CO appeared on our screens again.  
"Attention pilots, we cannot keep up with you. The enemy will reach us before we can reach the colony. I do not know what Cunningham has planned, but I do know that this may be our only chance to save Ghorah Khar. I order you all to proceed at best possible speed back to the colony. Furthermore, I order you to succeed next time. Do not fail me again."

His face vanished and the Carnthranizdolles came to a complete stop. Some fighters took off immediately towards the colony, others stayed by the cruiser for a long time before they were finally able to peel themselves away. I sympathized, being ordered to leave your ship and crew to be annihilated was not easily obeyed.

As the Imperial fighters closed on the solitary cruiser, I watched the battle unfold on my nav map. A few enemy fighters vanished under the fire of the Carnthranizdolles' turrets, but without fighter cover the Fraltha was as good as defenseless. A few thin lines which represented torpedoes shot out from Paktahn icons and began to close in. One was shot down by flak fire, but the other three detonated on the cruiser's starboard broadside. After a few seconds a second white flash shone behind me, and then all that stood between Ghorah Khar and annihilation were a handful of battered fighters.

At least I wished that's how it was. I wished that there was something that we could have done on our own but the reality was far more terrible.

**To be continued**


	34. Insult

**Chapter 34: Insult **

Beowulf's perspective

"Here's to Lizard. 23 kills to his name, snoring like a beast from Hell's nethers and a ghastly singing voice. He'll be missed."  
"To Lizard." We said in unison, then threw back a shot of the bottle of whiskey that Lizard kept under his bed with a note attached which specifically stated that all the Avenger's pilots empty the bottle on the event of his death. Unfortunately the Captain had only allowed this on the condition that we all take an alcohol suppressant injection first. We were still on alert after all, and it looked like that was where we'd stay for a good long while.

An uneasy silence followed, this was our third lost comrade in the space of a week. Kilrathi raids were becoming increasingly commonplace in Gemini. Lesser clans and privateer groups mostly as this sector remained too insignificant for the Empire to commit significant forces, but hunting packs could still strike at convoys, destroy our fighters and launch bombardment missiles at our colonies. Confederation citizens were dying in the hundreds.

We had done more then our fair share of our own killing. In the last three months the Avenger had destroyed three enemy destroyers, five Khamekhs and almost a hundred fighters. Our forces in this sector were too small however, and there were far too many gaps the Kilrathi could slip through.

The Kilrathi it seemed, were focused on seizing the Sutur system, their attacks on our blockade point near that system had almost doubled. The Winterrowd and the Avenger were keeping them at bay, but the scramble alarm sounded four times daily on average, and with each battle, some of us died. Our supply of weapons and spare parts was running thin with re-supply convoys coming under almost constant attack by pirates and retros, and on top of everything, morale was paper thin. Everywhere we looked there were Confederation soldiers and citizens being buried under an almost endless sea of Kilrathi.

There were a fair few of us pilots left, and the bottle didn't last long. Conversation broke out in sporadic bursts between a few groups of people but for the most part we all remained silent. There wasn't much to be said that wouldn't lead back to the generally shitty situation we were all in.

After a few seconds of staring blankly at the barrack's door, I made my way to the window and started staring blankly at the stars. The dark side of a planet was visible in the distance, identifiable by the thin ring of light that surrounded it, the only other sight was the destroyer Mjolnir, which hung above the Avenger.  
"Hello Hrothark." Lancer said, appearing at my right, "looking for gold?"

I stayed silent, hoping he'd get the message that I'd rather be left to myself right now.  
"Mr. Beowulf," He said undeterred, "Mamma tells me you're quite the oddity, a virgin at your age?"  
"That wasn't funny the last time you said it either." I said.  
"You have no one to blame but yourself."

I turned to glare at him, on the surface you could think that the atmosphere of mourning was lost on this guy. He was one of those types who look like they don't have a care in the world. Sometimes though something would slip, a twitch of the face, a pause in conversation or something which to the trained eye could show you that underneath all his jibes and apparent frivolity, the war had left its mark on him too.

I thought I saw that now, there was something in the shape of his default grin that looked 'off', like he needed extra effort to keep it in place.  
"Is there something you wanted?"  
"Just the usual, an end to the war, a blond eighteen year old virgin chained to my bedposts in a luxurious mountain hideaway somewhere where the gravity won't crush you under the weight of your own hair." (Whenever the opportunity arose, he would always find someway to complain about his former posting at a civilian research outpost on Port Headland's High-G night planet.)

I nodded uninterestedly.  
"Also it would be nice to have at least one day when the scramble alarm didn't go off." He glared expectantly at the speaker above the lift door. Seconds passed and nothing happened.  
"I said it would be nice to go through one day without having the scramble alarm go off." He said louder, though not loud enough for any of the other pilots to hear. Again, seconds passed and no demented shrill from the alarm disturbed our peace.  
"Well how about that?" Lancer said in almost genuine surprise. He laughed and I managed a distant snigger.

Minutes ticked by slowly, the chef had made a batch of my favorite stew which contained things which were probably more metal then meat but anyway, eating was a labored process as it always was for me when I was depressed. Every spoonful clung to my mouth like I was eating glue.  
"I got a letter from home," Came a muffled utterance through a mouthful of food, it sounded more like Ah goh a lettwer fwoh hown.  
"Yeah?"  
"Rachael says hi."

Instinctively my face twitched as a familiar uncomfortable feeling struck. No offense to Rachael, that's just the way I was.  
"Ah stony silence from the silent warrior, unwilling to let his heart be burdened by female companionship, how noble. I'll tell her you miss her."  
"Will you shut up?"  
"Ah come on cat-man, don't give me that. I'm doing this for your own good. Besides she's in Gateway man. Long distance right? None of those nasty, sticky matters of the flesh that you despise so much. Sounds perfect for you if you ask me."

To clear up any confusion that my first name and 'cat-man' (as Lancer insists on calling me) might give, I am in fact human. My name is Hrothark Nar Ghorah Khar. My mother was Kilrathi. She was the only parent I've ever known, my biological parents are as big a mystery to me as how Lancer can snore so loudly as he does.

I knew I shouldn't have gone with him on shore leave. On the Avenger, people understand me and don't expect me to act just like them. On Ghorah Khar the citizens, be they human or Kilrathi can recognize the traits of one species or the other in me and do not view me as some kind of freak of nature. On Gateway however, I was surrounded by people I could never relate to. These were people who did not know the hunt, did not know battle and lived for something I still know not what. I know this is a fault in perception. My upbringing was unique and as a result so is my perception of things. I can't expect such creatures as the Gatewayians to trouble themselves trying to accommodate this or even understand me, more then anything I wanted to be left alone by those I did not know, for the most part I was.

At first I did not have much of a problem, I found a firing range, (great fun), and pilot's bar where I could spend a good deal of my time among fellow warriors, though most looked at me like some kind of freak. The real problem however was when I accompanied Lancer, or Steve if you prefer, to an evening meal at his house. It was there I met Rachael, his seventeen year old sister. (At the time, this was about three years ago now). I have absolutely no idea why, but there was something about my character that caused her to lust after me. Perhaps it was a naïve image of a warrior that some cublings, both human and Kilrathi admire. Or perhaps it was, as Lancer calls it, my lone wolf personae. Either way I ended up getting called back to his house for more occasions on her insistence. Walking the fine line between not causing her undeserved insult and at the same time keeping her off of me was far harder then many of the battles I have fought in my career. Anyway, this isn't the main point of the story and if it's all the same to you I'd really rather not talk about this any more. Besides…  
"Attention, all Wolf pack and Dragon fire pilots report to the briefing room in ten minutes. Repeat, all Wolf pack and Dragon fire pilots report to the briefing room in ten minutes."  
Lancer sighed heavily and extended his middle finger at the loudspeaker.  
"Sod's law," He said, "It's not a scramble alarm, but it's just as bad. Fate's being subtle today."  
"At least we get to finish eating this time." I said, remembering one too many days when I'd had to abandon half my lunch. How was it that the enemy always knew when we were eating?

We tipped the rest of the stew down our throats, got up and made our way to the lift.

**Nine Minutes Later**

"Pipe the chatter boys and girls, it's time to earn our pay."  
"What pay?" Lancer whispered.

I watched intently as the map screen came to life. I instnantly made out the symbols representing the Avenger, the Winterrowd, and two planets. I could also see what looked like four Confederation transports. Soon Colonel Cole started speaking again.  
"As you know, our re-supply convoys have come under considerable harassment from Kilrathi and pirate forces. This has started to take its toll on our ability to mount an effective defense in this system. If things keep going as they have been, the Kilrathi are walk straight through us and straight to Perry."

This was the fact that so many of us had been trying not to think about. The Kilrathi attacks demanded enough attention when we were trying to sleep, but the idea of garden variety pirates being our downfall, hell that was just plain _embarrassing_.

Sorry, I rant easily.  
"To ensure the safety of this convoy we'll be strengthening the standard escort. As you've probably guessed that means each and every fighter from your two squadrons.

An uneasy murmur passed through the room. If the Kilrathi came in and attacked when the ship's supply of Hellcats and Arrows were off babysitting cargo ships then in all likelihood, things would get unpleasant very quickly.  
"I know it's risky, but we don't have much choice. The pirate presence in this system has almost doubled in the last week. If we don't get these supplies then this system will fall. The Winterrowd will just have to take care of us for a while." He paused for a moment. At this point we all found ourselves appreciating our supply shortage problem all the more.  
"Let's get to the specific assignments. Alpha wing will meet up with transport Alpha 3-1-1. The wing will consist off…

**Three Hours Later**

We passed by two separate debris clouds en-route to the transport. One was the remnants of a battle between pirate and militia forces, the other seemed to be a battle between Kilrathi and Retros. Kind of a cheery image when you think of our enemies blasting themselves to bits. Regrettably there was no shortage of debris from Confederation ships that the recovery units hadn't picked up yet.

We were an hour away from the transport. At the moment it was flying with only two Militia Gladii which, if I'm brutally honest, was like flying with a couple of bicycles for fighter cover. Hopefully our eight ships would prove to be a little more of a deterrent to potential attackers.

Most of our wing was asleep, waiting for an ear piercing shrill to rouse them at the first sign of a Kilrathi or pirate vessel. I guess it must be nice to have the luxury of slumbering through the monotonous moments of piloting, alas I had been taught the importance of alertness in such situations well and by now it was instinctive. I could not sleep in one of these things even if it was parked.

Unfortunately the relaxed mood caused by the three hours of inactivity was not to last. It was about this time that the cry of-  
"Mayday! Mayday! This is the independent cargo vessel Michigan. We are under attack and require immediate assistance, repeat this is the cargo vessel Michigan, we are under attack and need help!"  
"We read you Michigan, how many attackers are we talking about and what's your location?"  
"We're transmitting now. There's three retros after us, Stilettos."  
"Understood, I'm sending help your way, try and hold them off until we get there."  
"Hurry!" With that the channel cut out.  
"Right, Beowulf, Gremlin and Lancer, check it out. I'm transmitting nav co-ordinates."  
"Understood sir." Yawned Gremlin, having just woken up it seemed, "Ok guys, let's make this quick."

I afterburned into formation with Gremlin's Hellcat and we were soon moving towards the transport. It didn't look like it was too far away, but they were in the middle of an asteroid field, kind of a strange place for a transport to go, I could only assume they were trying to lose their pursuers.

**Twelve minutes later**

"I've got nothing boss," Lancer said, "No freighter, no fighters."  
"No debris." I added.  
"Maybe we're too late." I added, "Any sign of engine emissions? Maybe they already made off with the freighter."  
"I can't tell sir, then again the asteroids might be covering them up. They're pretty hard to see at the best of times."  
"True enough," Gremlin said, "Keep scanning, we'll stick around for a few minutes and see if anything turns up, if not we'll head back."

Whilst Lancer checked sensor readings, I made a slow trip around some of the more tightly clustered asteroids, trying to see if I could spot anything small that might not show up on sensors.

"Wait a minute," Lancer said after a minute or two, "I'm picking up something, looks like Stilettos, maybe four of them.  
"Ok people, get ready to engage but wait for my signal, these could be militia."  
"Make that eight Stilettos, 20km out and heading this way. Holy shit, they're coming at us from all sides."  
"It's a trap," obviously "Break and attack."  
"It never fails," Chortled a voice belonging to some woman with an unimaginative skull and crossbones on her flight helmet, "That Michigan stunt always works on wannabe hero idiots."  
"Why Beowulf, I think the nasty pirate wench has insulted us." Lancer said, interrupting the transmission, "Call her something back."  
"I'm feeling generous today so I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Now stay calm boys, we only want your fighters. Disconnect your self destruct systems and eject, and we'll leave you in peace."

I had a missile lock on her fighter, God knows how much I wanted to shut her up with the help of an Imrec. I forced the anger down and focused as best as I could on my duty, trying to ignore the jibes. We were outnumbered, that was true and the Stiletto in the hands of experienced pilots could fly circles around Hellcats. However, we had the stronger vessels as well as re-enforcements not too far away. It has to be said though, the odds still looked very much against us.

So did we give up our fighters?

Did we fuck.

**To be continued**


	35. Pest Control

**Chapter 35: Pest Control**

Lancer's perspective

The pirate didn't move an inch as the Imrec missile closed in on his craft, granted there wasn't too great a distance between our ships, but he, or she, should have been able to manage some sort of evasive manoeuvre or jettison a decoy or something before his ship was consumed by the fiery darkness of doom.

I managed to tear away a fair bit of the forward armour on a second Stiletto before it got out of my way. I was beginning to feel my uneasiness subside, if these two were any indication then this would last two minutes.  
"You'll pay for this you fuc…" This cheery epitaph you'll be pleased to hear came from none other then the pirate's wingleader. The same recidivist squad bitch that tried to get us to jump ship earlier. I was later to discover that Beowulf had shoved a missile of his own smack bang into her engines.

My target was trying to come around and charge at me at maximum velocity. The Stiletto, for all its other failings was a quick beast and the pirate probably thought to wear me down with a few runs at me or maybe a missile or two. What had apparently slipped his or her mind however was that we were in fact in an asteroid field. Whoops, smack bang into a pretty smallish lump of rock actually, if his frontal armour was still intact he might have survived the impact.

Not wanting to yield our successive killing streak just yet, I fired off a heat-seeker at a Stiletto that was trying unsuccessfully to stay on Gremlin's tail. It looked like they were firing off shots just for the hell of it. The only thing they hit were innocent rocks. Unlike the first guy, this one noticed the missile. The antique chaff pod he jettisoned though was no match for the superior, present day guidance system on even the second most simple of beasts, the heat seeker. His ship abruptly disappeared under a curtain of flames and then the good Captain Gremlin was left to destroy a fourth Stiletto in peace.

To my surprise, it seemed the rest of the pirates had some brains after all, with half their wing obliterated in half a minute (God we're good, I'll strangle any man who says otherwise,) anyway, the rest of them decided that sticking around was not a good idea.  
"Nice work guys," Gremlin said, "Form up and let's get going, we've wasted enough time for one outing."  
"Oh come on sir, tell me you don't want to finish them off."  
"Course I do," Came the straightforward response to Beowulf's question, "But we're needed elsewhere."

I sighed and re-entered formation with Gremlin's fighter. We started moving, but I soon noticed that we weren't heading back to the convoy.  
"Listen up guys," He said, reappearing on the com-screen, a blinking light beneath the monitor informing me that this was a secure channel. "With any luck those pirates think we're heading back to the convoy. I've signalled the Avenger and called for backup fighters and bombers to be placed on standby alert. Hopefully these guys will lead us straight to their base of operations, assuming they don't crash first. Maintain radio silence."

Now that's more like it, a chance to nip this pirate problem in the bud, or one of them anyway. I always love a good strike mission, these stealth runs however tended to be a bit cumbersome and long winded, and more often then not you didn't find anything.

**An hour later**

In their defence, they had gone to a dummy nav point before altering course and heading home. Not that it would do them much good though.

I'd been expecting a disused mining station or a decommissioned destroyer. I was half right, it was in fact two destroyers, and it looked like they'd both been decommissioned with the help of a torpedo or two. One was an Exeter, the other was a Ralatha. Both were joined by a series of tunnels and it looked like they'd carved a docking bay into the bow of the Ralatha and a second one stood where the Exeter's engines should have been. Pretty clever design really.  
"Oh boy," Gremlin said, still on a secure channel and at a suitably far distance from the base. "Would you look at that? Hang tight boys, I'm calling for backup, when they arrive we move in."

Truth be told I was a little surprised that either the Avenger or the Winterrowd had agreed to ready fighters to send our way in the first place. For all our talk of dwindling supplies and essential convoys, our first and foremost focus was on the possibility of Kilrathi attack. Their raids came more often then not, and no matter how many of them we took out, they always had reinforcements. Our own reinforcement requests to HQ, according to rumour, were typically answered with something along the lines of 'We don't have anything, quit pestering us.' But that's another story.

We waited with all non-essential systems powered down. There were at least twenty fighters in the air, at first I thought they were expecting us, but a barely remembered lecture from some briefing or other given to 2nd year cadets talked about how pirates were more often then not under no illusions of immortality. To ensure the survival of the hive or den or whatever, they overburdened themselves with ships and pilots. These twits had more ships then they had room in their docking bays, as such they had to keep some in the air at all times. Handy in some respects considering they didn't have to scramble fighters in case of an attack, less handy in others because of fuel consumption and pilot fatigue. If I was right I'd say that some of these fighters doubled up as cabins, and sleeping in a fighter is not really something you want to make a habit of.

I guess it should have been relieving in a way, the more fighters here meant the less fighters pestering our transports. Of course this was just the one gang, who knew what was happening with the others. We hadn't received any distress calls, but that didn't mean much.  
You worry too much That's what my Dad would probably say, We're all gonna die son, not much that can top that, so stop worrying. A morbid man if ever there was one, but he was probably right, worrying wouldn't serve any useful purpose, nor would it change anything. What could I do instead? I mused on the subject for a few moments and realised that the answer was in fact, nothing.

**Forty Six Minutes Later**

Two Thunderbolts, two hellcats and four arrows, those were our re-enforcements. It has to be said, it didn't make for the most reassuring of strike teams. If we were up against a halfway decent Kilrathi target then I'd presumably have voided my bowels by now. We were outmatched about two to one, and that was without any more Stilettos or Talons coming out of their flight deck. Perhaps our earlier performance should have convinced me that things weren't necessarily as unpleasant as they were starting to seem, but these pestiferous pre-flight jitters are about as easy to get rid of as Oxford spine-weevils.

"Alright people," Came an impatient voice over the com, "Let's make this quick. Avenger pilots, I'm Major Hurley from the Winterrowd, I'll be assuming control of this wing. I want everyone to move in, pick a pirate and send a missile through his teeth. Hit them hard and fast, try to keep them scared and unfocused. Thunderbolts, aim for the docking bays. Everyone got it? Good, now let's get going."

And got going we did do. I hit my afterburners, prepped an Imrec missile, targeted a Talon, heard a few cries of 'Oh Christ!' and something about 'Blue bellies' from a few of the pirate fighters, sniggered some and fired as soon as I heard the chime.  
"Fewest kills buys the next round as soon as we can drink again." Beowulf said hurriedly before closing the channel. Interestingly, this part of our job seemed to be the only time he seemed genuinely cheery. I guess that's what a Kilrathi upbringing does to you.

From what I saw, he launched at least three different missiles at three different targets. I decided to keep mine in the event I needed them in close quarts combat. Beowulf was a fearless soul though, more then once he'd made the cryptic comment that missiles 'simply weren't good enough'.

Anyway, enough about him. Most of the pirate forces moved to intercept the larger Confederate force which was coming at them from the opposite direction, four Talons were heading in our direction, three of which as I mentioned were promptly dispatched by Beowulf's missiles. The other one was quickly taken out by Gremlin when it attempted to turn tale and run towards his surviving comrades.

"Major," said some Winterrowd pilot or other, "I'm reading fighters launching."  
"Stick with it people," Hurley replied, "Thunderbolts, get those torpedoes launched."

I closed in on a Talon which looked like it was trying to find a target of its own. I cut through the shields easily enough and then I guess I scored a lucky hit because the next thing I knew I was flying through a fiery debris cloud where the Talon had been. I called up another target and in doing so discovered, or perhaps rediscovered that there were still no shortage of the things in the air.

A momentary shudder and a flash of blue from behind me, and then another. Someone who was by the looks of things an incredibly bad marksman was shooting at me. I pulled up, almost flying straight into yet another Talon as I did so, and lost my attacker in a mess of fighters and gunshots.  
"Steve," Beowulf said over the radio with an eerie calm considering we were in the midst of a battle, "Lock onto my fighter and follow me to the base, I want to try something."  
"This isn't a good time buddy, I'm…"  
"Just do it," He said, transferring his fighter's tactical information to my ship as he spoke, "This might be fun."

He closed the channel and, figuring he'd only start bitching if I didn't play along, I followed him. It soon became obvious that he was heading towards the pirate base.

Two talons which were pursuing a single Arrow were passing by in the distance, my and Beowulf both swerved to intervene, and intervene we did, though awkwardly we both ended up firing at the same fighter, his wingman broke off the chase when he saw his buddy go up in flames. Considering he didn't take any pot shots at us I'm guessing he wasn't too concerned about it.  
"So what's the…" I paused as my ship shuddered under sudden deceleration and downward strafe. This was a trick I'd picked up from Beowulf, he'd picked it up from someone who could possibly be called his father, though you'd probably receive a long, piercing glare if Beowulf ever heard you call him that.

Anyway, the trick worked, the Stiletto passed gracefully overhead and was promptly incinerated by a heat seeker. I never normally got this many kills on any sortie, abundance of targets or otherwise. This among other things reinforced my belief that we were shooting at en-barrelled ducks.  
"So what's the plan?" I repeated.  
"The Thunderbolts are concentrating on the docking bays, but with fighters still launching and Talons pestering them, it'll be a while before they can get a clean shot. We can throw a wrench into the pirate's launch though if we take out their command centre."  
"Which we can do easily because that base is a couple of derelict shit holes with extra bits."  
"Precisely."

I'm kind of surprised Hurley hadn't thought of that. Maybe he figured it was unnecessary. In any case, I think some of the pirates figured out what we were up to, four red dots were moving our way, I think these were guys who'd just launched. Pretty soon my 'lock' alarm was sounding, I had to jettison a lot of decoys before it finally cut out, and even then two of the three missiles fired at me passed unnervingly close to my cockpit.

Beowulf took out one of the fighters, a Talon, with a few good hits from his cannons. I saw the enemy fighter explode in the corner of my eye as I pulled my ship around to face the Stiletto that had just passed me. I fired too early and my first shots went far too wide, my next volley however removed the pirate's rear shields and I think caused some engine damage. The pilot decided not to head back my way.

Beowulf was busy ripping apart a third fighter while the other one was making a run at me. My dorsal shields took a bit of damage, but not enough to show up on my left hand monitor. I was about to turn and engage this fighter when I noticed a thin trail of smoke slam into it, in other words, I thought as the pirate expired, a missile.  
"Looks like you guys had the same idea we did." Said an unfamiliar female voice belonging to a Winterrowd Arrow pilot, one of a wing of two it seemed, "You were heading to the command centre right?"  
"We were indeed milady," I replied, "Care to join us?"  
"No but you can follow our engine exhaust and watch professions at work if you'd like burn-out boy."

Burn-out was a term we'd been hearing more often then we should lately. It was something of a stereotype for pilots assigned to ancient Ranger class carriers. In the eyes of some we were second rate pilots. Just goes to show that some people are peerless morons.

Anyhoo, I bit back a snarl of sorts, a bad habit I'd kind of picked up from Beowulf. (Yes the man actually growls). Anyway, I know I shouldn't take things like this too seriously but what can I say? I guess I'm just too sensitive.  
"You hear that buddy?" I asked Beowulf, though considering he was charging towards the command centre as quickly as I was I'd guess that he had.  
"Yes," He responded, "Let's show these pampered fleet carrier whelps where to shove it shall we?"  
"We shall." I responded.

The Arrow as you know is a faster ship then the Hellcat, and they already had something of a lead on us. I checked the radar and it didn't look like there were any more enemy fighters around, in fact it looked like their numbers were beginning to get a bit thin.  
"Torpedo away." Uttered one of the Thunderbolt pilots over the com.  
"So much for our idea." I said to Beowulf over the com, "Let's get clear."  
"Agreed."

We were getting pretty close to the base, almost within flak turret range I'd guess, assuming that thing had any turrets. Still, we weren't nearly close enough to have to worry about getting caught in any large, torpedo related explosions.  
"Damn it," The bothersome Arrow wench chortled over the com, "We'll feed your egos another time."  
"Yeah," uttered her wingman, "What she sa…"

An explosion cut off the man's transmission. Instinctively I checked the radar for any fighters which might have gotten a missile in but found nothing. It must have been down to flak fire.  
"Ranger?" Came a worried cry from his wing leader "Ranger!?"  
"I'm alright," Came the reply from Ranger, much to all our relief, "Flak hit took out my ship but I got out in time."  
"Thank God." Knife (according to her flight helmet) said.  
"Hold that thought," Beowulf said, "Your ejection pod is too close to the base, if…"

As he spoke, the first torpedo detonated in the Ralatha's launch bay. One large explosion gave way to another large explosion and the before long the nose cone of the former destroyer was no more.  
"Second torpedo away," The second Thunderbolt pilot said, "Get clear people, I'm reading what looks like fuel canisters near the launch bay. This blast's gonna be big."

Oh shit.  
"Just how close is he?" I asked.  
"Too close," Came the grim response.

Oh _shit_.  
"I think I have an idea," Beowulf said, for one sounding kind of rattled. "I'm going to get him."  
"What, you don't have a tractor beam, how are you…?"  
"Just trust me." I hate it when he says that, but not as much as I hate myself when I reply with:  
"I'm on your wing."  
"No, keep clear, no offence Steve but I don't need you for this."  
"Right, I'm on your wing."

He shook his head and his face vanished from the screen, only to reappear a few seconds later when he opened a com to the pod.  
"Ranger, listen closely. We need to do this quickly. I want you to disconnect yourself from your chair, hold your breath and get ready to leap for my cockpit."  
"What are you nuts?" Came the understandable response, "That's insane, that's fucking suicide is what it is."  
"Either do it or stay there and get caught in the blast, your choice."  
"But…"  
"Impact in ten seconds." I said.  
"Last chance Ranger, you do this now or I turn round."

We both came to a stop near his fighter. Beowulf's cockpit opened steadily. The pirate base suddenly looked a lot bigger.  
"Six seconds."  
"Ok," Ranger said with a voice that sounded anything but happy, "Standby."

He started fumbling with his safety harness.  
"Four, Three, Two"  
"Here goes nothing."  
"One."

**To be continued**


	36. Line in the sand

**Chapter 36: Line in the sand**

**Z'ratmak's Perspective**

"_Sivar, Lord of the hunt, Lord of war, Lord of the Kilrathi. Hear us your sons on this day of destiny._"  
"Hear us!" The rest of us, even some humans, replied as one.  
"_We offer our claws to you Lord Sivar, so we may cut down your enemies. We offer the blood of those who are soon to die to sate your thirst. We give you our souls, should you see fit for death to claim us this day_."  
"We offer ourselves to you, Lord Sivar!"  
"_Grant us victory this day Lord Sivar. Stand with your chosen on the battlefield. May your strength fill our hearts and may our enemies cower before your righteous rage_."  
"Grant us victory Lord Sivar, your servants and your sons."  
"_Praise be to Sivar_!"  
"Sivar be praised!"

The priestess slowly stepped down from the makeshift pedestal that had been erected for her use. she looked to be an ancient creature, perhaps with not too many years of life left in her. On that day however she stood over the warriors of Ghorah Khar with her head and tail raised proudly. Whether it was our destiny to die this day or drive the enemy from our soil, she smiled on us, finding no fault in our souls or in our honour. That was comforting, if a high priestess of Sivar could find no fault with us, then it was all the more likely Sivar himself would feel the same way.

Some terran marines were offering prayers to their own Gods, I never really found out what manner of beings terrans offer their blood and soul to on the eve of battle. It's a puzzling thought, terrans are not a warrior race by design, rather the tapestry of fate has woven the warrior's spirit into their race. But what of their Gods? Did they design their children to be weak? Or is this all some elaborate test? Perhaps their current appearance is a curse for the misdeeds of their ancestors, if they prove themselves worthy then perhaps terrans will one day be blessed with fur and claws.

But that has little to do with me, as a Kilrathi my focus is on my own Gods, and with the prayers completed, there was nothing to do but sit around the makeshift trench and wait for the cry of 'charge'.

They knew we were here of course, and unless they were fools which considering some of their earlier blunders they may very well have been, they knew what we were going to do. In orbit a desperate battle for air supremacy was unfolding. Our space forces remained outnumbered, but be that as it may Confederation forces typically fight against the odds and as often as not emerge victorious. My point is that the battle could unfold in favour of either side.

My h'rai were safe, they were locked away with the other civilians in the safety of an underground bunker. I had not seen them for one single day and may very well never see them again, but strangely the knowledge that they were out of the firing line was a great comfort to me. I had spent so much of the battle worrying about whether they would so much as make it to cover. The fact that they had, somehow, gave me hope that maybe they'd outlive the red day that was upon us.

I spared one final thought for each of them, and another for my home. I tried to remember the shining city it had been rather then the smouldering husk it had been reduced to, but it was easier said then done. It did not matter though, for as I told you, the buildings could be rebuilt, and the dead were about to be avenged. Maybe.

Ryuku once told me that to pilots, enemy troop transports held the same appeal as something called a birthday cake. They were under gunned canisters containing one thousand defenceless enemy marines to be slaughtered. How they crammed so many into such a small space was a mystery to me, but those were the facts. For us though, with no fighter cover and only four hundred soldiers, (many of whom were not marines but civilian volunteers). The turrets on those transports could cause us no end of problems if we were unlucky.

The plan was simple, we wait for the enemy to reach the opportune altitude, then charge. Take out the turrets, insert explosives with the Kilrathi marines still inside and unprepared, then move in and slaughter them all.

In orbit, the remainder of our forces were attempting to outflank the enemy carrier. I believe they were coming in from a far angle and attempting to get behind it. This was risky as the enemy could reach Ghorah Khar before our forces reached them and they could do untold damage before our ships could intervene. Once they were committed to a ground attack however, the carrier would be helpless, and without their home base the fighters would be doomed. The only way for them to assure a complete victory was to turn and fight. But with no fighter cover to speak of on the planet, they saw no reason not to send in their ground forces.

These were indeed desperate times.  
"All warriors stand ready. We attack shortly."

I pushed myself upwards and made a final check of my weapons, one standard issue Confederation field rifle with an extended grip for Kilrathi use, and three fission grenades.

Three waves of terrans were to speed ahead of us in ground assault vehicles. For one thing these vessels were designed for terrans, for another they could not run so fast as the rest of us and would be of little use on foot. Their job would be to target the turrets and try to take them out before they turned on us. All the while we would be advancing, we had to move quickly otherwise the enemy may deploy their troops.

"Humans," Shouted Colonel Glar'tak "advance!"  
"Charge!" Shouted one boisterous terran marine as the three assault vehicles shot off into the distance. It didn't take long for the deafening howl of turret fire to start tearing through the air.  
"Second wave, advance!"

**Twenty Seconds Later**

Momentary flashes of red and deafening shrills from the transports laser turrets were fast puncturing the ground beneath the assault vehicles. This was making it all the more difficult for them to get any clean, close shots, although they seemed to be favouring a greater distance for their attacks.

For the moment it didn't seem to matter as all their shots accomplished were unimpressive dents in the hulls. This didn't inspire much confidence. Nevertheless we charged onwards, weapons at our sides. We were fanning out into two separate groups and trying as much as was possible to increase the distance between ourselves. It seemed likely that the enemy would soon turn their turrets on us if the terrans could not destroy them quickly enough.

I did not initially notice it, but it was around this time that the first wave's assault succeeded in disabling one of the turrets. It was also at this time however that the first enemy shots rained down upon us. One brief explosion not seven meters from me, and at least five of our warriors ceased to be. Blood and charred flesh from those who were not instantly incinerated was cast into the air. A second later and another explosion, this time from behind me. There was screaming this time.  
"Break to the sides!" Screamed one unseen Kilrathi, "Spread out, don't give them a clear shot!"

I tried to oblige but there were soldiers blocking my left and right, all charging directly towards the port-hand transport. I was about to barge through the one on my left but then I noticed the turret's fire moving away from us. It seemed that most Kilrathi had moved to the right and the biggest cluster of targets remained there.

A series of three short bursts on one turret's surface preceded a cessation of fire from one of the enemy weapons. I snarled momentarily in triumph, only to have the feeling 'crap out on me' as Fool might say, when I was forced to duck to avoid the debris cast up from another blast that had claimed the lives of the seven or so warriors in front of me. Another soldier stumbled into the small pit created by the laser impact. I found myself running over him and the next thing I knew there was no one standing between me and the transport I was advancing towards. I was getting close and the troop carrier was looming all the more with each step I took towards it. One of its turrets was still operational and though I was still too far away to see it, I knew, I knew that it was following my progress. To my sides my comrades were still advancing, though they had now separated themselves from me by about two eights of metres. Two Kilrathi were trailing behind me, the third seemed to be facing difficulties in extracting himself from the shallow pit. The fool.

The enemy gunner apparently decided that there were worthier targets then me, and a concentrated arc of laser blasts soon cut its way across our lines. Some of these shots were rushed and impacted in the strike force's wake, others took out eights of warriors in less then a second. Yet still we moved closer, and two of the three assault vehicles were still intact.

The transports were almost at ground level now, if we delayed even for an instant then we could soon find ourselves dealing with hordes of Kilrathi troops pouring out of both craft, although if we could get close enough quickly enough, we could pin them down inside their vessel and set explosives on the hull. It was all down to time, and the workings of fate.

**Twenty seconds later**

The enemy didn't wait until touchdown before deploying their troops. Imperial marines leapt from the transports in groups of fours and fives, they were met with laser fire but we were still not close enough to target properly. Several enemy soldiers went down under the sheer volume of blasts. Those that survived however were able to return fire, and with so many of us advancing ever closer, an unsuccessful shot was not an easy feat.

I fired blindly at the vague hints of enemy troops before me, I was tempted to fire at the one remaining turret that had returned its attention to the one remaining assault vehicle simply because I felt I might have a greater chance of hitting the target. I despise firing foolishly, but for now there didn't seem to be much choice.

In the distance I saw a bright flash which preceded a short torrent of soil and fire. That was all I could make out of the destruction of another assault vehicle and its crew. The sole remaining one was making another un at the turret, but as always, targeting with the attached cannon when in motion with any degree of accuracy on so small a target was anything but easy. One shot after another impacted on the hull to the sides of the turret. These vehicles were not designed for precision strikes. They were designed to create diversions, to perform reconnaissance tasks, and to speedily move marine units. What we needed were rocket launchers with armour piercing ammunition. Again however, in a group this large, it would be impossible to aim the weapons while in motion, and the risk of an explosion among our own number was too great.

Yet more enemy troops were piling out of the transports. The main hatch on the portside transport was beginning to open now. Soon Imperial troops would be deployed dozens at a time. The transport still hadn't landed, I wondered whether they were going to hover above ground and let their entire compliment of warriors leap out. Kilrathi could happily endure a ten metre descent at least, fifteen in all likelihood.

I had been trying to find a suitable pace which would not tire me too quickly when I reached the transports and found myself in battle. It seemed that this was now a luxury I couldn't afford.

**Two Minutes Later**

I slammed the butt of my rifle into the armoured chest of the enemy, he stumbled slightly, then fell to the floor under the impact of a second blow. I raised my weapon and fired before he could recover himself. Fortunately the rifles are designed to be impact resistant for this very reason.

Perhaps a hundred Imperial troops had reached the surface by the time we reached our targets. They were only descending from the one transport. The sole remaining assault vehicle was still harassing the other one, and if they could get a few goods shots through an open hatch then the enemy would be slaughtered. That transport's turret however was herding them, and keeping them from providing assistance to us.

I found another target charging at me, his weapon was raised but it looked like he wished to beat me to death with it. I could almost understand, we are hunters, and we live by our claws, not our technology. Each and every one of us wanted to tear into the flesh of our enemy with fang and claw, we wanted to fight unburdened by our protective armour, but that simply could not be, as my unfortunate attacker discovered when I raised my weapon and shot him.

No sooner had he fallen then a swift kick in the right leg forced me into a crouching position. I saw a flash of red, the markings of imperial battle armour. I tried to swing my weapon around but a blow to my head sent me falling backwards. I looked up and with my helmet filtering out the obscurities that the sudden rainfall would have otherwise provided, I saw an enemy, his face hidden behind the mask of his own helmet, standing over me with his rifle pointed at my chest. And then he died, someone had targeted him and shot him. Laser fire was passing back and forth between both sides and warriors were falling in groups of fours and fives, on both sides. This looked set to be a battle of attrition, and as you've been told, there were more of them. To state the insufferably obvious, this was not looking good.

**To be Continued **


	37. Demons

**Thanks to all readers and to everyone who has reviewed. Sorry again for the wait.**

**Chapter 37: Demons**

**Mephistopheles' Perspective**

I skulked about my _Phantom_ restlessly, examining the new missiles that the base's crew had installed earlier in the afternoon. I had no reason to doubt their competence but nor did I blindly trust in it. Everything seemed satisfactory, though the sight of a missile sitting peaceably in _Skadi's_ arms looked wrong to say the least, much like the rest of this tedious scene.

Her proud red and white markings were a stark contrast to the colours of the Confederation. She looked as impatient as I felt. We both longed to sink our fangs into furry flesh once more. This system was ready to overflow with the enemy, and we along with our fellow warriors would fill the empty void of space with their atomised remains.

First things first however, the insufferable 'night before the dawn' routine. For most this was a time of reflection and regret or of last touches of the skin of their, (to coin a suitable Kilrathi phrase) lair mates. It was a time where they waited to die with wet eyes and a red nose. That was true for some. There's nothing wrong with this, no one with an ounce of worthwhile soul in their bodies wants to die, and there's certainly nothing wrong with last minute pleasures of the flesh. I try to judge my fellow flyers only by how well and how vigorously they fight, for that is the true test of a human, standing in an airless realm of death and lunging forth at your enemy with nothing but the one truth guiding your hands. You, or him.

I circled my ship twice more before bidding her goodnight, foolish sentiment I know, but it is difficult to think of her as just a pile of mettle and circuits. To me she was both my trusted steed and closest confidant in one, she rode with me to every battle, shared in every kill. Together we were one whole, apart we were incomplete, both unable to fight and kill. There was only one way to displace ill timed bloodlust.

I left the hanger and made my way back through the dimly lit corridors of this freakish gulag wherein the misfortunate mined for tungsten each and every day. Just the thought of such an existence was painful. How did these people endure such monotony? Bah, such is a question for philosophers, and theirs is as necessary a job as any.

After two wrong turns and a circular course which almost led me back to Skadi, I eventually managed to find my way to the cabin that I'd been assigned during my short stay here. Zhi lay inside on the foul looking mattress, starting intently at whatever wonders she could find on the ceiling. This was no place for the Blood Lords.

"Couldn't sleep?" She said as the door hissed shut behind me.

"I can never sleep." I replied, "You know that."

She twisted onto her side, bringing her bare pale skin to bare, as it were. That was a sight I never tired of seeing. I could feel my lust for battle subsiding as the blood filtered downwards out of my head to where it was now needed.

"Things are looking up for the Confederation in this system." She said cheerfully as I removed my shirt and cast it on a nearby chair, "Word on the news is that Fighters from the _Winterrowd_ and the _Avenger_ put a base full of pirate vermin to the torch."

"Good." I muttered, "We don't need such filth interfering when the main event unfurls."

She answered with a short lived snigger, "You think they'd interfere?"

"No, no of course not. The cowards would sit in the shadows and watch as the Confederation and the Kilrathi tear away at each other, then swoop in to salvage the scrap mettle."

"But now one of their holes has been fumigated, the others should keep out of the way, for now."

"For long enough," I answered, flinging my trousers aside.

I moved to the bed and closed my arms around Zhi's chest. We kissed, and then gently(ish), she pushed herself away from me.

"Let's not rush." She said, sadistically running a hand over my penis as she stepped away. This is one of the many reasons we gave her the call sign 'Tormenter'.

"What else is there to do?" I said, calmly as my heated blood would allow.

"Patience," She said, pulling a half finished bottle of Sukar'Mayar from her pack and setting it on the filthy mattress, this I remember was salvaged from a Kilrathi transport we had destroyed some months back. One cargo container had been salvaged and the merchant's guild had gifted it to us as part of our pay. We had little use for the three hundred imperial marine helmets but it seemed the ship's captain was smuggling contraband alcohol to wherever the transport was en-route to. That's my theory anyway.

"Let's not rush when we have so long left to wait."

I sat myself on the bed and took the bottle with a quivering hand. The hot liquid burned as it fell through my throat, thankfully there was none of the subsequent queasiness that had plagued me throughout my academy days. At long last I had gotten over that.

I handed the bottle to Zhi and she downed her own mouthful, parting with a pained gasp afterwards. This was strong stuff indeed.

"Do you think Loki's right?"

"No."

"If they're expecting a big enough Kilrathi push then they probably won't want to leave their soldiers here to get slaughtered."

"And leave Perry's backside open to Kilrathi invasion?" Zhi sniggered at my words and I soon realised I that should have chosen them more carefully.

"My point is," I continued, "That the Confederation's back is all but against the wall here. They can't afford to run now. They must fight and drive the enemy back if they are to hold this sector. Better here then in Perry, on the doorstep of their own headquarters."

"Perhaps," She replied, the bottle hovering nervously under her chin, "But maybe if they pull back they have more time to call in more ships, form a proper line for a proper last stand."

"No one wants a last stand. The Confederation's had too many of them already. Besides, you've seen plenty of blue shirts over the last few days. After the glorious victory in Brimstone the people are keen to kill once more. The Kilrathi will meet with a force starved for vengeance and victory, mark my words."

"Some are, but others are battle weary and/or afraid of dying."

"Gargh, hopeless. Why can't such people see that the war is not to be shied away from?"

"You know how it is," She sighed, passing the bottle to me, "'Don't look for souls…"

"…In every soldier.' I know. All we can do is kill what Kilrathi we see, and claim more burning husks for the trophy pit."

I call it the trophy pit, it was actually Dante's cargo bay. Filled almost to the brim with bits of toasted ships, monuments to the successes of the Blood Lords. In any case, the evening trudged on at the same snail's pace that suits it best. Zhi and I downed the bottle and soon returned to indulging in a far more productive way to spend our time. I would be more then happy to go into details, but this insufferable proof reader we hired complains about time allowances and word limits, and he winced more then once at the mention of some uh, suitable phrases that I came out with during the deed. Overall however he believes that tales of our battles would be more suitable for the overall story. He's probably right, but I don't much like having to cut my own story into segments.

**The Following Afternoon**

I gave my briefing in space, it works better that way, my soldiers don't twitch quite so much with impatience. I tried to sound as inspiring as ever but it was a little difficult with the unease in my stomach that the anti-hangover sludge had left in its wake.

"Hear me my Blood Lords, we go to strike a blow against the Kilrathi. A Confederation recon wing operating behind enemy lines discovered two enemy destroyers en-route to this system. They come here to assail the _Winterrowd_ and the _Avenger_ and cull the ranks of our blue suited brothers in preparation for their main assault. They are due to arrive in another hour, we shall move past the jump point and obliterate them before they arrive in-system."

There were five of us, two Gladii (Dante and Abbadon), one Phantom (me), one Rapier II (Zhi) and one Centurion (Loki).

"Our _official_ orders are to do sufficient damage so that the enemy is forced to pull back for repairs." An unfriendly hiss answered this, "But I will be most displeased if one Kilrathi escapes our torrent of devastation with so much a whisker intact. We shall kill them all, as always."

Our ships had been upgraded over time, our armour, shields and weapons meant we could go head to head with the most modern enemy fighters. It also meant that we were all outfitted with jump drives. Zhi's Rapier looked somewhat odd sporting the cumbersome contraption halfway outside of her hull, but it was a small sacrifice when hunts such as this were the result."

"Any idea of enemy escorts Commander?" Abbadon said, a quiet eagerness in his voice. He was the newest warrior to join the ranks of the Blood Lords and he was eager it seemed to both prove and humble himself before us. In other words he didn't want to look like a boastful tit before he had any right to do so. I suppose that was admirable, but at the same time I wished he'd hurry up and grow out of it, we were meant to be stand proudly in the face of the enemy and certain of, if not victory, then a good end. There were times I wondered whether he'd be better suited for life in the Confederation Space Forces.

"At least ten Dralthi, probably more." I replied, "We should strike quickly, before these flies have time to swarm us. As always Dante and Abbadon, I want you to focus all your fire on the destroyers, if they fall then the Kilrathi will be stripped of their courage. Even if they win they lose when they reveal to their commander that they let two Imperial capitol ships get gutted by some _lowly_ human mercenaries."

"As always sir." Loki said.

"Understood Commander." Abbadon added.

Time ticked by as slowly as it had the previous evening, but eventually we reached the jump point, the _Winterrowd_ queried us of course and eventually let us pass through the jump point when I'd managed to convince them that we weren't retros or pirates. (Security it seems is only vigilant when it isn't needed.) With this done, we made our way to what was once Blockade Point Charlie. Formerly Confederate held territory, and so would it be again when it was ultimately swept clean of the furry menace.

It's always fun progressing through a jump point in a fighter. The swirling, impossibly bright vortex outstretches itself around you and at any moment looks set to collapse in on your craft, devouring both you and it. It's that kind of sight that can knock any unhelpful fears out of your head and replace them with the practical concern of potential death. It focuses you in other words.

The destroyers were nowhere to be seen when we made it through, nor was anything else. We remained alert for a few minutes on the off chance that some Strakha were waiting to pounce on recon wings, but the more time passed the less likely it seemed that anything was going to happen.

We were all of seven minutes ahead of schedule. Nevertheless I would still have expected to see the oncoming destroyers on radar. Perhaps they had been delayed or redirected. I was going to be very unhappy if we were denied our sport today. I had not waited all that time in a dreary, cold rock just to let my blood freeze further out here amongst the void.

"I've got something." Loki said, his were the most advanced sensors, it's not surprising ours were still blank. "Can't tell what it is yet, it's reading as a large electromagnetic distortion, probably a number of ships flying close together. It's pretty big sir."

"Ok then," I said, "Let's move towards it and see if this is indeed our quarry, if not we'll probably have to kill it anyway."

We started forward, it didn't take long for Loki's face to reappear.

"Yes! It's them Commander, two Kilrathi light destroyers confirmed. No intel on the escorts yet."

"Ok then, hold here for a moment, let them get a look at us. Let them see a rag tag group of ineffectual looking terrans blocking their path and grow overconfident as a result."

"Give us a speech sir." Loki said.

"Yes, give us a speech." Zhi echoed.

This lot were always pestering me for rousing speeches. It helped before battle as often as not but every so often I was getting requests for speeches whilst sitting on the toilet seat.

"Very well," I said with a sigh before clearing my throat, "Before us my friends lies meat, furry meat with no purpose but to die by our hands. This is our hunt, and they shall be swept away like all who have come before them. We shall return in triumph to a hero's welcome aboard the _Winterrowd_, and our ferocity and our valour shall inspire their warriors when the next wave of Kilrathi come through the jump point to their own demise. Today we shall snatch victory from their burning throats. To them we are nothing but apes, nothing but food or slaves or target practice, but never has one of their kind destroyed the spirit of the Blood Lords, never has one of our number died without honour, or disgraced themselves through retreat. We are the masters of this field of death, and they are no match for us."

"Whoo!" Loki chortled with far more sincerity then might come across on the page.

"That's the spirit." Dante echoed, "Hear and learn Abbadon."

"Enough." I said, the enemy ships appearing on my radar now, two destroyers, ten Dralthi and two Sorthaks. They could prove troublesome.

"What is this?" Said a Kilrathi voice, rudely interrupting my counting, "Is this what the apes have sent to guard the jump point? I should not be surprised, your species proves it's pathetic nature time and again with each battle."

"Laugh while you can you furry prey beast." (Call them prey, it's far more insulting then you'd believe without seeing it first hand, "Today you are nothing but trophies for the Blood Lord's mantelpiece."

"A human with spirit?" Uttered a second voice, "I thought those were just legend, still, let's see how quickly your foolish bravado fails you when our shots rain through your hull, clawless whelp."

"Enough talking." I could feel the saliva rising in my throat, I could taste the blood that was awaiting us, "Forward my friends, show them your steel as it rips the flesh from their bones."

I came to full throttle and waited as the Kilrathi afterburned towards me, they were wasting fuel, one point to us. It didn't take too long for the gap to close, maybe a minute or two. When it did, I raced full speed at two Dralthi that were advancing on my position. The first one unloaded a dumb fire straight at my teeth, I pulled up and parted with a few shots, a lucky hit detonated the missile, concealing me for a few seconds and giving me enough time to come about and fire at the first Kilrathi that had lost sight of me. His shields buckled and he pulled away, but he wasn't getting away from me that easily, I hit my afterburners and put myself right up against his engine exhaust, no room to evade my fire, no chance to dead stop and allow for a suitably powerful collision. He pulled upwards eventually, but by then I had already taken out his rear shields. Armour tore away from his engines and scraped against Skadi's cockpit. Flames soon started seeping out of his exhaust and it was then that I allowed the gap to widen, a few more shots and then I watched as my first kill of the day unfolded before me.

No time to cheer, another Kilrathi was on my tail and unloading shots into my rear shields, the action dictated itself, I turned about, transferred all energy to my forward shields and charged straight at him. He bounced off my front shields and was pushed sufficiently backwards onto his tail. I fired, he fled to try and set himself up for another attack run. A third Dralthi started firing into my weakened port side, I rolled left and it soon became apparent that I'd have to resort to using a missile or two earlier then I'd hoped.

I turned to face the newcomer and launched a hasty dumbfire at his face, not to sound immodest but my aim is good, even under fire. The missile impacted on his front shields, ripping them away like wrapping paper. My follow up salvo split the beast in twain.

I turned about and flung myself at another two Dralthi that were coming at me, they seemed to be ignoring the Gladii for the moment, our mad antics had thus far outshone their own and this was aggravating more then one imperial flying type it seemed.

I heard nothing from any of the others, but that's how I wanted it. No one needed to hear cries of 'I've got one' or 'Aarrrrgh!' When they're fighting for their own life. If you're in trouble then fine, call for assistance, but otherwise keep your mind on your own killing.

To that end, I launched my remaining dumb fire at a Sorthak whilst it was in mid turn, I afterburned after the missile and unloaded a few cannon shots into the weakened hull it had impacted upon, managing to snap off one of its wings. I'm not sure how badly it damaged the fighter, but defacing it like that would certainly draw more attention towards me. Good, the more there were shooting at me, the less our bombers had to worry about until they were rid of their torpedoes and free to do their own fighter to fighter fighting.

You know, all any of us really had to do was survive, and to do that, all we had to do was kill everyone else. There are some who call us insane for this very reason. Cynics.

**To be continued**


End file.
